STAR POWERED
As celebrities rush to support Black Lives Matter movement, some might make an impact
Earlier this month, Emma Watson participated in #Blackouttuesday, during which social media users posted black squares to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and worldwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd. The widespread effort proved problematic as the squares flooded the resource-filled #Blacklivesmatter hashtag and contributed to a futile silence. Though it seemed to have grown out of #Theshowmustbepaused, an initiative created by Black music industry executives to redirect attention and funds to the movement, #Blackouttuesday failed to properly accomplish either goal.
Watson faced a parallel line of criticism. Despite being vocal on social issues in the past, she hadn’t said anything publicly before posting three black squares, outlined in white to fit her Instagram grid’s established esthetic. Fans and casual witnesses alike questioned why she hadn’t instead leveraged her platform to share resources with her 57.3 million followers. She broke her silence the next day, later sharing a headline arguing that “we need to rethink our ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ approach to activism.”
In a moment when inequities highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic have already chipped away at the perceived utility of celebrity, empty efforts like #Blackouttuesday, for some, further erode it. But for others, who have more actively taken a stance against anti-blackness, whether online or at a protest, fame has proved to be a useful tool. Once a celebrity works through the personal and professional calculations of deciding to address an issue, the question becomes how to use their platform most effectively.
In 2012, after George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, celebrities such as Spike Lee and Janelle Monáe raised awareness by sharing the link to a petition calling for Zimmerman to be charged. Others such as Taraji P. Henson and Gabrielle Union elevated these efforts by expressing outrage online. Activists recognized the stars’ influence and ability to help “legitimize the narrative,” said communications expert Sarah J. Jackson, co-author of #Hashtag Activism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice. After Zimmerman’s acquittal, celebrities helped spread the #Blacklivesmatter hashtag, as well.
In these cases, and as the Black Lives Matter movement manifested in demonstrations after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, people with intimate knowledge of the situation laid the groundwork for celebrities to get involved. Jackson pointed to Ferguson activist Tef Poe and former MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor, now an editor at The Daily Beast, as two figures who helped raise awareness before the Ferguson protests wound up in celebrity feeds and on every cable news channel.
“Organizers are savvy enough to know they need to get the attention of celebrities and get the attention celebrities can bring them,” Jackson said. “The way they can best represent social movements is when they are a part of activist communities and intimately familiar with the issues. In the cases where they aren’t, it is more often about being a megaphone and bringing more attention to the issue.”
Numerous celebrities have attended protests themselves: some documenting police behaviour like Halsey; or speaking up like Keke Palmer, who told members of the National Guard that them kneeling “ain’t enough for me”; or calling for action from Hollywood, like Michael B. Jordan, who spoke about Oscar Grant, the man he played in Fruitvale Station, who was killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer. John Boyega received an outpouring of support on social media from filmmakers such as Jordan Peele, Edgar Wright and Cathy Yan after delivering an impassioned speech at a Black Lives Matter protest in London, where he noted, “I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f--- that.”
“Celebrities still worry about losing opportunities and having their careers damaged by speaking out,” Jackson said. “For Black celebrities in particular, as we saw with Colin Kaepernick, there are real consequences to speaking out beyond what is sort of the acceptable norm.”
Like Kaepernick — who protested while playing for the NFL, a league that, despite hiring a majority of
Black players, is overwhelmingly run by white people — Boyega prioritized the fight for Black lives over any concerns he might have had about alienating part of his fan base. The Star Wars fandom in particular has been at the centre of many debates about diversity and inclusion in Hollywood, noted Henry Jenkins, author of Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change. Jenkins added that “there have been angry white men who have been upset by the idea of Black stormtroopers” and the casting of Kelly Marie Tran, Boyega’s Vietnamese American co-star.
Problems arise, Jackson continued, when celebrities instead become the centre of the narrative — even when that happens unintentionally, as was the case with Watson. Lea Michele tweeted #Blacklivesmatter and was soon called out by former co-stars, including Samantha Ware, Alex Newell and Amber Riley, for onset behaviour that Ware described as “traumatic” microaggressions. Other celebrities posted a square on #Blackouttuesday but, at least in the public eye, said little else. For every celebrity who makes an impact, there are several more who, as Buzzfeed News reporter Michael Blackmon succinctly stated, “are being useless.”
While numerous celebrities have publicized their donations to organizations and bail funds, such as Chrissy Teigen, others have quietly donated money — like Kanye West, who reportedly donated $2 million to support the families of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Some prefer to operate behind the scenes, as Jay-z and Beyoncé reportedly did by bailing out Baltimore protesters in 2015.
Being able to stay out of the spotlight is a vital skill for celebrities who make the decision to get into activism, Jackson said. The best “are the ones who come to the meetings and honestly listen to the organizers, and think about their own position and the power they have, and learn by reading the same things the organizers and members are reading, and give the organizers money.”