Hello and welcome to the first Action Project of my Senior humanities class, Journalism. In Journalism, we have been reading from a book called Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago by Lealan Jones and Lloyd Newman. Our America takes a deep dive into the housing project where Lealan Jones and Lloyd Newman lived. We also had the opportunity to virtually attend two Northwestern University panels on journalism. These panels prepared us for our Action project, where we interviewed people who understand the issues in our world. Our America has been our first step into taking on the role of journalistic reporters for this AP. For this AP we were asked to take an issue that is present in our respective "Americas" and turn it into an article. I decided to use the racist and sexist culture around social media as my issue. I hope you enjoy this AP.

          CNN "Breonna Taylor" 2020 @megantheestallion Instagram @thedigitaldash Twitter 

      Misogynoir in My America

On August 8th, 2020 Dash uploaded a selfie to Twitter, and immediately they were met with a mixed reception. The post became a topic of discussion because Dash, in their own words, doesn’t meet the standard of beauty that is usually accepted by the masses on the internet.

“Of course my girls were hyping me up as always, but then the post started getting more attention.” People began to compare Dash to Gunna, a male rapper. Dash didn’t bat an eye at first. Until the posts comparing them became relentless, then Dash spoke up. “I know that the hate was coming because I am a dark skin femme, and I’m not skinny.” In 2010, queer black feminist Moya Bailey coined the term Misogynoir. Misogynoir is the hatred, dislike, distrust, and prejudice of black women. “It does break you down, to see black women and girls torn apart on the internet everyday… especially when it's black men doing the most”, says Dash (@thedigitaldash on twitter)

Incidents like this happen all of the time on Twitter, a social media platform that is mostly text-based. Due to Twitter’s algorithm, it is relatively easy to go viral. If a post is getting a lot of attention, the racist, colorist, and sexist trolls are not far from attacking. Even extremely famous and popular black women are not protected from the hate that comes from this platform.

Megan Thee Stallion is arguably one of the most influential female rappers of 2020. Tragically, on July 12, she was verbally attacked and shot by a Canadian male rapper, Tory Lanez. Her fans instantly poured support for her. However, people (mostly men) flooded her comments with hate. “The worst part of it [the hate] is that young girls are seeing these comments and they will think they have to do the most just to prove that they were attacked,” says Rachelle, an avid fan of Megan Thee Stallion. People accused Megan of attacking the Canadian rapper first because of her size. The biggest problem with the attacks were the claims that Megan Thee Stallion was not a cis woman. This statement is rooted in transphobia. It villainizes trans women making it seem like their goal is to trick men into being with them. And that is extremely far from the truth.

Recently, The Daily Mail released images of Breonna Taylor holding her boyfriend’s guns that were owned legally. These images were purposely released to villainize Breonna Taylor and justify her murder. According to US News and World Report, Black girls are twice as likely to be suspended from school than white girls in every state. Black girls are seen to be loud, angry, and overdramatic in most situations. Microaggressions plague the everyday life of black women and when these microaggressions are confronted head-on is when the harmful stereotypes are brought up.

The way black women are treated in our America is harmful and deplorable. It is imperative that people speak up and start protecting black women.