In mid-April of this year, the kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls from the Northeast portion of Nigeria by the Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, was met with a tepid initial response by international media. Over the next several weeks the hashtag #bringbackourgirls, originally started by the local Nigerian community as #bringbackourdaughters, pushed the incident into the international spotlight through social media. We’Ced’s analysis of the incident led to a conversation about social media usage in social justice causes, sometimes called hashtag activism. We weren’t sure if hashtag activism was a lazy way of appearing to be part of a cause or an effective strategy in raising awareness.
This incident has again raised the issue of racism into the national spotlight. We'Ced took time to reflect and think: Do we see this type of behavior in other places of our lives? Sterling had a reputation for being a slumlord for many years prior to the tape leaks, why are we more fascinated by racist words than racist actions?
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