Here’s why Facebook’s Black Lives Matter sign means nothing
Stop before giving Mark Zuckerberg anti-racism ally cookies.
I recently saw a Facebook post to a piece on Fusion explaining how the company had just put up a giant “Black Lives Matter” sign at its headquarters. The link came across as congratulatory for the social media behemoth: the subtitle read “Good job, Zuck.” and the article is filed under a bright blue tag that says “Sings of Improvement” in the upper left corner above the headline.
As much as I’d like to give Zuckerberg a pat on the back for this move, I can’t. This gesture is complete and utter bullshit.
As a Black woman who supports and completely believes in the movement to create a world where Black lives matter, I wanted to be overjoyed about this supposedly bold move. But I felt indignant instead; the move feels like a cosmetic gesture used to make Facebook and its founder seem anti-racist without having to put any real legwork into affirming the value of Black lives.
Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s really f*cking cool that Facebook made this big (and true!) declaration. I love how the letters are comprised of individual victims’ names, including Renisha McBride, Emmett Till, and Oscar Grant, to create the larger picture.
The problem is that when we look more closely at Facebook’s actions (as both a company and a platform), the signage means absolutely nothing to me. Aside from the signs across the Facebook campuses, the company has continually failed in its everyday operations to assert the value of Black lives.
Facebook’s policies and practices as a company need to show that it believes Black Lives Matter.
Facebook is still woefully behind in hiring Black employees.
Last year, The Guardian reported that only 1.5% of its staff is Black. This is after they doubled their number of Black employees. They just added Black employees into their senior ranks in 2014 — a mere two years ago!
Black wealth has been decimated thanks to the last recession. We have an unemployment rate that is over twice the amount of white Americans. We are often shut out of better opportunities thanks to explicit (and implicit) racism. One of the ways that we can improve Black lives and affirm their worth is to meaningfully support them by providing gainful employment opportunities. And they can’t stop there; they need to actively work to retain Black employees through methods including fair pay and combating a potentially hostile working environment for people who are such a small minority.
Facebook’s policies as a platform need to show that it believes Black Lives Matter.
Facebook consistently allows pro-Black content to be deleted while racist content is allowed to remain.
This is what upsets me the most: Facebook is a platform that has been invaluable for Black people to find community, but Zuckerberg and the company has failed to do anything to protect it. Our own attempts to affirm our worth as people are constantly squashed. Just last week, pro-Black pages Kinfolk Kollective and Son of Baldwin were deleted. A post by The Body is Not an Apology literally telling Black people that they matter was taken down.
Son of Baldwin was able to get their page back, but only because they knew someone at Facebook to help them. This is unacceptable. Considering how severely lacking Facebook is in diversity, I would guess it’d be incredibly hard for most Black folk to get such decisions reversed.
The whole premise about the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is that the kneejerk reaction to the phrase is to go “well, duh, of course!” (hence why we get the inevitable Twitter responses #alllivesmatter when folks tweet about it). The issue is that we live in a society that forces us to say it. Yes every life matters, but our society has policies in place that constantly undermine Black worth.
“Black lives matter” isn’t just something that is to be declared over and over. There needs to be change that will actually promote and affirm the validity of Black life. And honestly, Facebook has failed to do so.
Normally I would not be this moved to rant about the lip service paid to anti-racism. But Facebook is uniquely equipped to do something meaningful; it has enormous wealth, power, and resources to actually challenge white supremacy and racism that forced Black people to have to claim that our lives matter in the first place.
Facebook. Zuckerberg. Do better. If you truly believe that Black Lives Matter, then do something aside from creating a sign.
Your move, Zuck.
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