The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has long been considered a critical piece of federal legislation in the Civil Rights Movement. Enacted to prohibit racial discrimination in voting, specifically, it has protected racial minorities from unfair and predatory voting regulations like literacy tests, poll taxes, character tests, and property-ownership requirements, to name a few. In 2013, the Supreme Court decided on a case that struck down key provisions of the act, stating that they were based on old circumstances that had no logical connection to present day.

Since that decision, there have been numerous disputes occurring in states that were once subject to the old provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Lawmakers in several states–many southern–have started passing legislation with more stringent requirements to vote. It begs the question, is the Voting Rights Act still relevant and effective today?

History of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It was signed in the wake of “Bloody Sunday,” the infamous voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery where 600 people, including current Congressman John Lewis, were brutally beaten by Alabama state troopers. The Voting Rights Act was meant to eliminate discriminatory election practices, as states were still resistant to enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment, which declared that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Section 2 of the act mimicked the language of the Fifteenth Amendment by applying a nationwide prohibition on literacy tests to deny citizens of the right to vote. Moreover, the act also contained other special provisions that only applied to particular jurisdictions. Under Section 5, the act required that specific jurisdictions which attempted to pass new voting practices or procedures needed to receive “preclearance” from the Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Section 4(b) of the act defines eligible districts as those which had a voting test in place as of November 1, 1964 and less than a fifty percent turnout for the 1964 presidential election.

For years, the Supreme Court continually upheld the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, including Section 5. This included thwarting racial vote dilution through discriminatory annexations, redistricting plans, election method changes, and changes in voter registration standards and procedures. The section was originally enacted for five years, but has been renewed continually since its enactment.

Shelby County v. Holder

In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Shelby County v. Holder. The case, which was out of Shelby County, Alabama, concerned both Sections 4(b) and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Shelby County sued Eric Holder, the Attorney General at the time, arguing that Section 4(b) and Section 5 were facially unconstitutional, and sought a permanent injunction against their enforcement.

After making its way through the lower courts, it finally reached the Supreme Court. The justices had to decide whether the renewal of Section 5 under Section 4(b) restrictions exceeded Congress’ authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, in turn violating the Tenth Amendment and Article Four of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court held, in a 5-4 opinion, that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional. Essentially, the Court stated that the current formula conflicted with equal sovereignty of the states, as the disparate treatment of states was based on forty-year-old facts, which had no relationship to present day. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Our country has changed and while any discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation is passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”

In Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion he argued that Section 5 was also unconstitutional, contending that the blatant discrimination against certain voters that Section 5 was intended to protect against no longer existed. According to Justice Thomas, Congress cannot justify the burden of Section 5 without blatant discrimination.

Current Voting Rights Disputes

Since the court’s decision in 2013, many former preclearance states in the South are now embroiled in legal challenges surrounding voting laws. In Texas, the federal district court recently ruled that Senate Bill 14, which required voters to show a form of photo ID before casting a vote, had a discriminatory effect. Senate Bill 14 was passed in 2011, but was blocked by the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act. After Shelby County v. Holder, Texas officials said they planned to enforce the law.

Lawmakers in North Carolina passed a photo ID requirement, and curbed early-voting hours, same-day voter registration, and limited other registration and voting options. This was eventually struck down by the Fourth Circuit, which noted that the provisions targeted African-Americans with “almost surgical provision.” The Supreme Court declined to stay the ruling in a 4-4 split after Justice Antonin Scalia passed away last year. North Carolina has asked the court to hear the case fully, and now that the court has added Justice Neil Gorsuch it’s possible that it could grant the petition for review.

Just recently, a lawsuit has been brought by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on behalf of five organizations regarding the special election slated to take place in June 2017 in Georgia to replace Republican representative Tom Price. Since the Democrat, Jon Ossoff, failed to achieve the fifty percent threshold needed to win outright, a special election will decide his fate, against Republican Karen Handel. The suit alleges that the Georgia law disenfranchises citizens by requiring voters to have registered for the first round to vote in the runoff. Consequently, since the law means that voters would have had to register in March 2017 to vote in the runoff (before the first election even occurred), a large number of Georgians may be completely stopped from voting in the June 2017 election.

It is Still Relevant?

Just four short years ago, the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder was not hesitant to point out how key sections of the Voting Rights Act were not relevant to modern times. The majority opinion concluded that since the act had worked so well in preventing racial discrimination, it was no longer needed. However, given the numerous laws that have sprung up since the court’s decision, it seems that the act is just as necessary today.

After the act’s initial enactment, it had an instant effect on decreasing racial discrimination in voting. Not only did the number of registered African-American voters increase substantially, but the number of African-Americans elected to office also grew. Moreover, economic growth occurred because of the act. A study of 40 North Carolina counties covered by the act found that those counties experienced larger growth in African-American incomes, occupational status, and attracted more revenue from county and other government sources.

Now, without Section 4(b) in effect to determine which jurisdictions must receive approval of any voting law changes, Section 5 has now become relatively inoperative. Thus, this has allowed states to change laws and policies without any federal oversight.

Conclusion

After Shelby County v. Holder, many former preclearance states jumped at the opportunity to pass more restrictive voting requirements. While lower courts have found subsequent legislation to contain discriminatory intent or effect, the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on them. Thus, with a full court now in place after Justice Gorsuch’s swearing-in, the legacy of the Voting Rights Act is still up for debate.

Nicole Zub

Nicole is a third-year law student at the University of Kentucky College of Law. She graduated in 2011 from Northeastern University with Bachelor’s in Environmental Science. When she isn’t imbibing copious amounts of caffeine, you can find her with her nose in a book or experimenting in the kitchen. Contact Nicole at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Over the past couple of days, we have seen a few people who should be doing about 100,000 percent less. Among these people are Cee Lo Green at the Grammys, Stephen Miller, the Twenty One Pilots guys, and every person involved with the making of “Fifty Shades Darker.” Now we can add conservative cartoonist Glenn McCoy to those ranks.

On Monday, the Belleville News- Democrat, a newspaper based in southwest Illinois, published a McCoy cartoon in their Opinion section that drew parallels between the tough time our new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is having, and an iconic moment during the Civil Rights Movement, because that makes sense, right?

The reference: Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting, ‘The Problem We Live With’ pic.twitter.com/D1wvtyIz5Z

— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) February 14, 2017

If it has been a while since you’ve taken APUSH, let me remind you what’s going on in this cartoon. Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We Live With” depicts Ruby Bridges who, during desegregation in New Orleans, was escorted by three U.S. Marshals to and from her all-white school to protect her from angry protesters.

McCoy’s cartoon seems to suggest that the public criticism that DeVos has faced before and since her nomination is the exact same thing, or, at the very least, similar to what Bridges endured. In the cartoon, McCoy replaces the N-word and “KKK,” which are written on the wall that Bridges is walking past in the original painting, with “Conservative” and “NEA” (National Education Association), respectively.

DeVos gained sympathy from Trump for the particularly rough confirmation process she faced. DeVos endured a bruising Senate confirmation hearing, where her lack of knowledge about public school education and fear of grizzly bears were exposed. Nonetheless, DeVos was confirmed as education secretary last Monday, but only after Vice President Mike Pence cast a historic vote that broke a 50-50 vote tie in the Senate. Since becoming education secretary, DeVos has been relentlessly mocked for her tweets and blocked by protestors from entering a D.C. public school.

Lets compare and contrast: Bridges was six years-old when she began to attend William Frantz Elementary school as its only African-American student, and had to endure the racist chants from protestors when she entered and exited the school doors. Bridges was also the only student in her classroom for awhile, because the parents of her white classmates withdrew their children from the school. All of the teachers except for one refused to teach Bridges. Her family endured backlash as well. This all happened simply because she was a black girl trying to go to school. So, as you can see, there are many parallels between DeVos and Bridges.

You can check out more of McCoy’s cartoons here.

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

The post Betsy DeVos is Now “The Problem We All Live With” appeared first on Law Street.

Fifty years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson. Since then, the shape of the civil rights movement has transformed dramatically. Racial discrimination in voting, education, and employment began being combated by the activists of the 1950s and early 60s. Despite making progress since then, blacks and other minorities still face disparities, and they’re being addressed differently today. To further the cause, we need to know how the movement has changed.

What is the Civil Rights Conversation Today?

The transformation of civil rights and racial politics reveals what some scholars call the post-civil rights era. One such scholar, Howard Winant of University of California Santa Barbara, discussed what racism means in a modern context. In his piece “What is Racism?” he suggests that conservatives control the modern civil rights discussion. He says that the conservative revolution of the Reagan era created a wave of racial demands that used “individualism, competition, and laissez-faire” as its focal points. Although it was written in 1998, the principles he laid out are applicable today. Who are the conservatives engaging in discussions about civil rights now?

One politician stands out as taking the helm on civil rights issues from a political position: Rand Paul. Senator Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian Republican, has gained national attention. Although he may have started on the coattails of his father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, Senator Paul has made some interesting moves in his own right. From cosponsoring a criminal justice reform bill with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), to introducing legislation to curb civil asset forfeiture, Paul is making noise in Washington.

Other conservatives are talking about civil rights outside of the capital, too. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill that expanded the state’s drug court system; the policy is designed to help non-violent drug offenders access rehabilitation rather than serve time in prison. Libertarian groups like the CATO institute are also leading the way on discussing discrimination with scathing research on topics like police aggression.

Is there a problem with conservatism in the civil rights discussion? According to Winant, “racism is rendered invisible and marginalized” because of the right-wing’s domination of the discussion. He suggests that the conservative uprooting of the civil rights discourse resulted in a conversation “which deliberately restricted its attention to injury done to the individual as opposed to the group, and to advocacy of a ‘color-blind’ racial policy.”

But Senator Paul is acknowledging the racial components. In a Politico article he notes, “I believe in these issues. But I’m a politician, and we want more votes.” He’s actually advertising himself as the most prominent congressperson advocating civil rights for minorities, while admitting his political ambition. By recognizing the detrimental effects that excessive police force and the war on drugs have on racial minorities especially, is Paul changing the civil rights discourse while maintaining its conservatism?

How American civil rights issues are progressed is called into question by Paul. He may be referencing the disadvantages minorities continue to face as a result of these problems, but is his approach in line with true civil rights activism? Winant would call for a great emphasis on group collaboration and celebration. Meanwhile, the conservative and libertarian influence on civil rights issues would ensure that the political discussion remain an individualistic one. This dichotomy is important to keep in mind when discussing civil rights issues today.

The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs is remarkably impactful on civil rights. “Tough on crime” anti-drug policies, which have proliferated since the Nixon administration, swell America’s prisons and disproportionately affect the black community. Two drugs in particular largely define the epidemic: marijuana and crack-cocaine.

While marijuana laws across the country are loosening, black people are still 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people. Employment opportunities are lost, and families are broken. Similarly, law enforcement’s aggressive response to crack, and the drug itself, ruined entire inner-city communities. Crack’s culturally-white counterpart, cocaine, was never targeted with nearly the same hostility. As the War on Drugs directly toppled black communities and severed their families, it caused a number of other issues in the realm of civil rights.

Excessive Policing

A primary issue is constitutionally-questionable policing. In an effort to confiscate assets involved in illicit drug transactions, law enforcement officers across the United States have been endowed with the authority to take money and property through a process called civil asset forfeiture. Roughly 80 percent of citizens in these cases are never charged with a crime, but police may seize their assets and use them to fund their department. Escalating since the 1990s, the militarization of police also results in excessive aggression against innocent people. With law enforcement offices across the country having easy access to federal military equipment, police take on unnecessary gear and, during a drug search or warrant serving, break into homes without knocking, traumatize people, and often kill innocents

The black community suffers disproportionately from both of these issues. A New Yorker article on civil asset forfeiture notes the disparities faced by blacks and minorities in these cases. For example, in Shelby County, Texas “the targets were disproportionately black or Latino.” The American Civil Liberties Union published an extensive report on police militarization and found that “the use of paramilitary weapons and tactics primarily impacted people of color.” Although blacks comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, 39 percent of SWAT deployments impacted blacks, according to the ACLU. Only 20 percent impacted whites.

The War on Drugs led to excessive law enforcement practices that are are unsavory in their own right. But issues such as these consistently impact blacks at disparate rates. While a variety of problems now face minorities such as food insecurity and strict voter identification laws, the criminal justice system holds a great deal of political attention.

In some ways, the discussions we have these days about civil rights look very different than those that were prevalent during the hey-dey of the civil rights movement. The movement certainly has changed, and new players are entering the debates. What’s important to keep in mind is that the leaders of the current civil rights discussion shouldn’t only ask what can be done for each and every minority. They should also question how today’s civil rights conversation affects the community as a whole.

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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“Gay really is the new black,” proclaimed Daily News columnist John McWhorter in a recent article. John McWhorter is über insightful and I always enjoy watching him on Melissa Harris-Perry, but as Rosa Parks so eloquently said, “No.” No, gay is not the new black.

Courtesy of the Daily Californian

America’s legacy of racism is vastly different from its history of sexual-orientation discrimination and homophobia. The struggle for racial equality is also inapposite to the gay rights movement. The twenty-first century world in which the gay rights movement has so rapidly progressed has itself become a rapid place. Instant gratification is no longer instant enough. “Attention span” has become a sort of a misnomer, suggesting that our attention lasts long enough to actually span. Once upon a time, the adult attention span was somewhere around twelve minutes; that is, the average adult could stay focused on a task for twelve minutes without becoming distracted. Today, however, it’s dropped to five minutes. Some reports even claim that the average attention span on the Internet is two and a half seconds.

Courtesy of David Goehring via Flickr

That’s just ridic. Alas, these are the times in which we’re living. This wasn’t always the case.

Change used to happen at a snail’s pace and the civil rights movement reflects as much. Understanding then that “the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, civil rights lawyers like Thurgood Marshall employed a strategy of chipping away at Plessy v. Ferguson’s wall of segregation. They slowly and methodically attacked the system piece by piece. After more than fifty years, the chipping-away strategy culminated with the Brown v. Board of Education cases in 1954 and 1955, reducing the wall of segregation to a pile of rubble. The gay rights movement on the other hand has bulldozed its way toward some semblance of equality. It was just the mid-1980s when the Supreme Court gave us Bowers v. Hardwick — when it upheld the constitutionality of a state sodomy law that criminalized private, consensual oral and anal sex between two gay men.

In Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 the Court overruled its decision in Bowers. And in the ten or so short years since Lawrence, discriminatory laws across the country have fallen at a neck-breaking pace. Now, I’d probably be hard-pressed to find many people who’ve even heard of Bowers v. Hardwick.

I’ll concede, the reasons the LGBTQ community has accomplished so much so fast are far more complex than I’ve intimated. Somewhere in the mix of reasons is necessarily that the world itself is a faster place today. But who the hell has the time or attention span to delve into all those complexities? Maybe I do? After all, I did spend oodles of time before and during law school thinking about all this stuff. So, after much thought and deliberation about this topic, I’ve come to the conclusion t–

What were we talking about again?

—

Chris Copeland (@ChrisRCopeland) is a staff attorney at a non-profit organization in the Bronx, a blogger, and a California ex-pat living in Brooklyn. When he’s not reading, writing, or watching horror, he explores the intersection of race and LGBT issues with Law Street.

Featured image courtesy of [Andy Smith via Flickr]

Chris Copeland

Chris Copeland is a staff attorney at a non-profit organization in the Bronx, a blogger, and a California ex-pat living in Brooklyn. When he’s not reading, writing, or watching horror, he explores the intersection of race and LGBT issues with Law Street. Contact Chris at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Gay is NOT the New Black appeared first on Law Street.

In an era engulfed by technology, previous ways of life have undergone a revamping. One aspect is the way in which social movements are conducted. The implementation of social media as a key tool in producing change has created “hashtag activism,” a way of protest both hailed and scorned by critics for its influence.

What is Hashtag Activism?

Hashtag activism is the act of supporting a cause that is being advocated through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and other networking websites. Although sometimes criticized for its lack of effectiveness and promotion of lazy activism, it is the implementation of social media as a platform to raise awareness on a multitude of issues.

On September 17, 2011 the #OccupyWallStreet movement began to raise issues of economic and social inequality in the United States. Arguably one of the first major Twitter campaign, the protest mobilized thousands of people almost exclusively through the Internet. Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor under President Clinton, notes that, “Occupy put the issue of the nation’s savage inequality on the front pages” and “to that extent, it was a stirring success.” Although  with a lack of clear objectives and leadership the movement was unable to sustain long-term economic changes, #OccupyWallStreet created a new method of activism that was adopted in future campaigns.

Cases of Hashtag Activism

#Kony2012

War criminal and Ugandan military leader Joseph Kony is known for abducting children and turning them into child soldiers and sex slaves. In an effort to draw attention to his offenses Invisible Children, Inc. released a short documentary titled Kony 2012 in March of 2012, kick starting the “Stop Kony” movement that swept the United States. As of June 1, 2014 the film has over 99.5 million views on YouTube.

Americans helped contribute to the nearly 2.4 million tweets #Kony2012 accumulated in March 2012. Stimulated by the general public and celebrities alike, the United States deployed 100 military advisers to join the force of 5,000 sent by the African Union to suppress the violence in Uganda.

Abou Moussa, the U.N. Central Africa representative said, “We need to take advantage of the high level of interest, goodwill and political commitment to finally put an end to this crime.”

However, Joseph Kony remains on Forbes World’s Most Wanted Fugitives list as he has yet to be captured by the authorities.

#BringBackOurGirls

Boko Haram, a terrorist group in Nigeria, kidnapped 276 female students from their school on April 15, 2014. Since their abduction, the girls have involuntary converted to Islam and forced into marriages at the bride price of $12 dollars a piece.

Parents and activists were frantic for the government to escalate their involvement to find the missing girls, and their need to spread awareness led them to Twitter. According to BBC Trending‘s Anne-Marie Tomchack, Ibrahim M Abdullah, a lawyer in Nigeria, was the creator of the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The story of the abducted girls did not begin to gather attention until April 23, 2014 when Nigerians adopted the new slogan and began tweeting it.

Perhaps the Nigerian government would be able to ignore regular citizens calling for help, but once First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got involved the issue could no longer be disregarded.

Time’s Laura Olin stated, “It’s not everything, but it’s a start. And the world is now talking about 276 stolen girls in Nigeria when before it wasn’t talking about them at all.”

Boko Haram has continued to terrorize the people of Nigeria. Since the abduction of the school girls, the militants have kidnapped even more children and murdered people in towns along the way. The Nigerian government has been all over the place with its involvement. Statements banning protests were released, followed by a quick change of heart from the administration claiming it has, “never, ever tried to violate anybody’s rights. We believe in human rights, we believe in citizens’ rights.” Allegedly the military knows where the remaining girls are, but has yet to go in due to the danger of the camp.

#YesAllWomen

On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus in Isla Vista. Six people were fatally wounded and another thirteen were injured before Rodger committed suicide in the midst of a police chase. Before the attacks began, Rodger posted alarming and irate videos to YouTube declaring his disdain of all women since they had been rejecting him throughout his life. In addition to the series of videos, he produced a 137 page autobiographical manifesto written in the same sentiment.

Although it is clear that Rodger was more vicious and vehement than most, the outlines of the prevailing misogynistic American cultural values were evident in his manifesto. Feminists could no longer stand for the perverse ideology and took to social media to let the world know.

Because being alone in a parking garage at night is one of the most terrifying experiences on earth #YesAllWomen

— jackie vasquez (@jvask) May 25, 2014

#YesAllWomen because even a taped confession admitting to raping me wasn't enough to put him in jail.

— Jessi Smiles (@jessismiles__) May 26, 2014

I shouldn't have to hold my car keys in hand like a weapon & check over my shoulder every few seconds when I walk at night #YesAllWomen

— Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) May 25, 2014

The Twitter campaign #YesAllWomen created a place for women to share their own stories of sexism and brought attention to Rodger’s animosity toward women, that stemmed from the outlooks of our society. The New Yorker’s Sasha Weiss accurately described the moment as,

“#YesAllWomen is the vibrant revenge of women who have been gagged and silenced.”

#YesAllWomen is effective since instead of preaching to the typical feminist choir, it drew in the more mainstream population including men and celebrities. However, not all individuals were able to see the campaign for what it was and swiftly came to the defense of the male gender.

To counter #YesAllWomen, men’s rights activists were quick to tweet #NotAllMen. The thread was fashioned to establish that Rodger did not represent the entirety of the male gender; he was one of those terrible guys, not like the rest of them. #NotAllMen contributors felt the burning desire to let the world know they are not the problem and to once again push women’s issues to the back burner(if it was intended or not).

The people who tweeted #NotAllMen or believed that feminists were just on another one of their rampages missed what #YesAllWomen was intended to do. The true sentiment #YesAllWomen was expressed by CNN’s Emanuella Grinberg who said, “No, not all men channel frustration over romantic rejection into a killing spree. But yes, all women experience harassment, discrimination or worse at some point in their lives.”

As on May 26, 2014 the #YesAllWomen hashtag has reached 1.2 million tweets and 1.2 billion impressions.

 Arguments for Hashtag Activism

“Hashtag activism is a gateway between politics and popular culture, a platform to educate the ignorant and draw attention to the operation of power in the world,” stated Ben Scott in New America’s Weekly Wonk. By using a medium that is seen by millions of people daily, hashtag activism has the ability to alter a person’s attitude towards a cause by exposing them to others personal experiences and witnessing mass support. As social change is dependent on transformation at an individual level, Twitter makes itself invaluable as a campaign tool.

When victims see that others have endured the same trauma, it directly helps them as they can see that they are not alone in their pain. Even if they do not feel support by those they directly interact with in life, they know that people do care about them.

Along with the cases previously mentioned, computer-based activists also directly impacted the amount of funding for another issue they felt strongly about. Planned Parenthood annually receives $680,000 dollars from the Susan G. Komen Foundation that helps provide exams largely for minority and low income women. In January 2012, Komen announced that it would stop its funding of mammograms and breast exams through Planned Parenthood. The Internet went into an uproar, tweeting hashtags like #standwithpp and #singon. By Friday of that week, Komen had reversed its decision and stated it would continue to support Planned Parenthood.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, told the Los Angeles Times, “I absolutely believe the exposure on Facebook and Twitter really drove a lot of coverage by mainstream media… I’ve never seen anything catch fire [like this].”

 Arguments Against Hashtag Activism

Criticisms of hashtag activism stem from the thought that the generation that uses a social media-driven method of reform are observers, commenters, self-indulgent philanthropists – not true advocates witnessed in previous eras. CNN’s Dean Obeidallah stated that the ‘Greatest Generation’ in the 1940s and ‘50s were, “doers, not watchers.” In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the streets were flooded with protests of the Vietnam War and roared with a call for civil rights, forcing the hand of government officials to listen the people’s wishes.

Now the most common form of demonstration is retweeting another’s thoughts or giving a “like” on Facebook. Sure, online petitions are digitally signed, but the automatic signature lacks the passion displayed by movements that have come before.

Obeidallah relates the tactics of hashtag activists to the revolutionaries in the Arab world. He acknowledges that they did use social media, but their efforts did not stop there. Protesters risked their lives to achieve the change they yearned for, “All the tweets in the world would not have driven the presidents of Egypt or Tunisia from their offices,” declared Obeidallah.

Sarah Palin has also voiced her opinion on the inefficiencies of using social media to obtain success. On the former Governors Facebook page she posted a photo of a man with sheets of paper attached to his body, with hashtags scribed on them such as, “#StopLazyInternetActivism” and “#YouAreNotMakingADifference.” In regards to the abductions done by Boko Haram and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign that ensued, Palin included personal commentary in a caption:

Diplomacy via Twitter is the lazy, ineffectual, naïve, and insulting way for America’s leaders to deal with major national and international issues… If you’re going to get involved anyway, Mr. President, learn to understand this and believe it, then announce it: Victory is only brought to you ‘courtesy of the red, white and blue.’ It’s certainly not won by your mere ‘unfriending’ the bad guys on Facebook. Leading from behind is not the American way.

Evgeny Morozov, the author of “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, said, “My hunch is that people often affiliate with causes online for selfish and narcissistic purposes… Sometimes, it may be as simple as trying to impress their online friends, and once you have fashioned that identity, there is very little reason to actually do anything else.”

Many individuals share the impression that hashtags may come and go and they are no match for real world engagement.

Conclusion

While it cannot be denied that hashtag activism is an effective method in spreading awareness of a cause, the tangible achievements attained from physical protests perhaps outweigh those on the Internet. The absence of organization and leadership found in many Twitter-based campaigns have some people critical of the realistic capability these movements have in comparison to the street pounding tactics used during the civil rights movements. For a movement to be successful in a technology-driven generation, a combination of both civic engagement and hashtag activism would produce the best results.

 Resources

The New York Times: The Manifesto of Elliot Rodger

Washington Post: #BringBackOurGirls, #Kony2012, and the Complete, Divisive History of ‘Hashtag Activism’

Reuters: African Union Launches U.S.-Backed Force to Hunt Kony

#BBCtrending: The Creator of #BringBackOurGirls

Time: #BringBackOurGirls: Hashtag Activism Is Cheap – And That’s a Good Thing

CNN: Deadly California Rampage: Chilling Video, But No Match for Reality

New Yorker: The Power of #YesAllWomen

Time: Not All Men: A Brief History of Every Dude’s Favorite Argument

CNN: Why #YesAllWomen Took Off on Twitter

Hashtags: Social Media Users Respond to Existing Dangers Towards Women with #YesAllWomen

Weekly Wonk: #WhyHashtagActivismMatters

New Zealand Herald: Verity Johnson: Hashtag Activism – #TakeItSeriously

LA Times: Komen Learns Power of Social Media: Facebook, Twitter Fueled Fury

The New York Times: Hashtag Activism, and Its Limits

Christian Science Monitor: Happy Birthday, Occupy!

Forbes: The World’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives

CNN: Boko Haram Blamed for Nigeria Village Attacks; 15 Killed, Chief Kidnapped

Telegraph: Nigeria: Kidnapped Schoolgirls ‘S\

Alex Hill

Alex Hill studied at Virginia Tech majoring in English and Political Science. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, she blames her incessant need to debate and write about politics on her proximity to the nation’s capital.

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