Jaffe “Necessary Trouble” Ch 7-Conclusion

Ferguson Day 6 – Tear Gas Copyright 2014

While Jaffe talks about a lot of important things during these chapters, I really want to zoom in on chapter 8 specifically and talk about Ferguson. The main reason that I want to talk about this is because I distinctly remember it happening. I remember sitting on my laptop and reading the constant updates streaming in from Twitter and Tumblr about what was happening in Ferguson and how important it was for everyone around the country to know what was going on. If you look up #ferguson on Twitter, people are still talking about this. This was when people truly realized that we essentially needed a second iteration of the civil rights movement, and because of the current state of media and activism, everyone was able to see what was going on.

It was through the murder (yes, it was murder) of Michael Brown that an entire new movement started that has been going strong ever since – Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter Black Friday Copyright The All-Nite Images 2014

This was another huge trending hashtag on Twitter and still continues to be. The BLM movement is, in my opinion, the essential post-2008 movement. This was when people realized that social media like Twitter was actually useful in finding information on things going on in the world, it worked for the Arab Spring, so why wouldn’t it work in this situation too?

With the groundwork set through the events at Ferguson and the activism efforts of many members of the BLM community (like co-founder Alicia Garza who actually visited KU last year), it kicked off a new era of activism efforts relating to social issues within the US, specifically race issues. When activists come together from many different circles and work together on different causes, more work can be done. And I think that’s exactly what Jaffe was getting to in the conclusion of the book, the idea that different groups need to support everyone’s causes to get people to pay attention.