Social media can be used to aggravate or motivate depending on which hands are using it.
Social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, following the lengthy siege on the capital by radical fundamentalists, momentarily locked the account of the incumbent president. This prevents him from posting any status updates or tweets.
The 45th president is allegedly the catalyst for the riot.
While the President of the United States has been banned from his social media accounts, Black writers throughout the country used same platforms to inspire optimism and denounce White supremacy.
Author of the How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, used Twitter to demand that Americans stop denying the persistence of White nationalism within the United States.
That statement received thousands of reposts and retweets across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. This happened in the light of the public rallying behind the call to identify the roots of White supremacy within the MAGA movement. Kendi was not the only African-American author to recognize the attacks on the capital as a vigorous act of racism. Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, claimed that MAGA radicalism is, at its core, the alt right’s response to the Obama Presidency.
The Tweet shows the manner in which the political progress of this country is in constant flux, shifting like a pendulum between moments of inclusion and empathy. Thomas was not finished with her scathing critique of this American political moment. When President-elect Joe Biden tweeted, “America is so much better than what we’re seeing today,” Thomas responded:
While the attacks carried out on Jan. 6, 2021, showed the eery solidarity formed between domestic terrorists attempting to overturn the constitution, they also showed moments of unity between Black writers, activists, and thinkers. With prominent Black writers from different walks of life boldly challenging the status quo, it becomes a bit easier to have hope during these uncertain times.
