This past Tuesday, my daughter came to me and said, “Hey mom, they’re putting black squares on social media today for Blackout Tuesday*.”

I run multiple social media accounts, but hadn’t heard about this yet, so I quickly added black squares to all the accounts, including the ones that focus strongly on the Black community. My belief was that those squares were being posted in memory of George Floyd, and in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Then yesterday, a group of us who coordinate a filmmakers’ collective discussed whether we should follow suite with the many organizations putting out anti-racist statements.

I commented, “I have seen dozens of them in the past few days, and the more I see, the more they annoy me. You have to walk the walk, not talk the talk.”

In the end, we decided to make changes to our mission statement to better verbalize the goal that has always been part of our mission…to include all voices.

Then, this morning, I read two articles in the Hyperallergic newsletter:

• Black Squares Don’t Save Black Lives – “If you consider yourself an ally to Black people, it shouldn’t just be about you or how you feel; it should be about how you can help.”
• The Bulldozing Effect of the Black Square – “In the present, the black square says nothing about what is still needed to push things forward, and in the future, the black square will tell historians nothing about what we did.”

In truth, I felt stung by these perspectives that seemed to denigrate trying to show solidarity in a visual way.

Then I realized I, in the same way, had dismissed the good will efforts of all the organizations putting out anti-racist statements to show solidarity.

Essentially, these actions are both right, and both wrong, at the same time.

We’re right to show solidarity, but wrong if we think mere visuals and statements make a difference. All they really do is show which side of history, which side of civil rights, which side of life we’re on. They show on which side of those peaceful protests we stand. They are simply symbols indicating we are willing, even eager, to work at equality for all.

And it’s a start.

We understand that it’s only a start… that it’s akin to the act of picking up a hammer to work on building the foundation of a new and different structure that needs creation, where all sides face the sun.

 

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*Learn more about Blackout Tuesday and its subsequent backlash