The Daily Show: Ears Edition - The Power of Black Twitter (feat. Michael Harriot) - Beyond the Scenes

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

From hashtag activism to action offline, Black Twitter has been a vehicle for real change. Host Roy Wood Jr. chats with author of the book, Black AF: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America, Michael Harriot and Professor of Media Studies at Northeastern University, Meredith D. Clark about how Black Twitter has changed the narrative around policing, its influence on elections, how Black Twitter bailed Michael out of jail, and why Roy has a 36-hour tweet rule.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. What up? It's Roywood Jr. Next, you're about to hear a special presentation of the Daily Show podcast that I host called Beyond the Scenes. Now, all it is, it's very simple. If it's a topic that's already been on the Daily Show, we talk about it again, and we go even deeper on the topic and, you know, see where we are now on the issue, get deeper into the origins of the problem, and we do that with Daily Show producers,

writers, correspondence, and expert guests who know a hell of a lot more about it than us to help us break it down. Have a listen. Have a listen. Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes. The podcast that goes deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Look, this is what you got to think of this podcast is, all right? This podcast is like a full stack of pancakes drizzled with maple syrup. You just can't have one.

You know, you'd be at brunch and then you order an extra plate for the table so you can share it with all your friends. That's what we are. Now, I'm Roywood Jr., and we're here to talk about a piece that I did in 2017 called Black Eye on America on Black Twitter. Roll the clip. For decades, the black barbershop has been the epicenter changed things. Let me introduce you to Black Twitter. Black Twitter is an entire... I think we need somebody more qualified. Let's go with Jamila Lemieux, executive, writer, and most importantly, black person.

Jamila, what is Black Twitter? It's just really an extension of how we communicate in our neighborhoods and our barbershops and our churches and our schools. It is our village. Think of Black Twitter as Harlem. Black folks made it cool and now white people trying to move in. What we do on social media and of course we over index and we use it more than anybody else and we use it on mobile which means we have it you know by our side 24 hours a day. That's right while we make up just 12% of the US population 25% of American Twitter are black and they're three times more likely to post daily on Twitter than white people. Today I'm joined by fellow Famu alumni and associate professor in media studies at Northeastern University. Madam Meredith D. Clark, welcome to be on the scenes. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you. Thank you for being here. Also joining us is a brother who is a writer at the grio

and he does a lot of hard work on the ground and he also starts up a lot of mess on Twitter. And you know, every nine, then having folks mad. He'll pivot right into having them mad and starting to mess. If it's anybody who knows about engaging with Black Twitter, it's the homie Michael Harriet. Michael, how you doing, man? I'm great, man. Thanks for having me.

Man, I appreciate you all for being here. Now, let's go ahead and be real about this. We know what type of show we own. We know what type of audience the daily show is. That's part of why we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we the why we the why we did the why we did the why we did the why we did we th th th th th th th th th th that that that that that that that. I'm that. I'm that that. I'm that. I'm that. I'm that. I that. I that. I that. I that. I th th th th th th th th th th th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. th. that. that. that. that. that. that. that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that th when conversations around blackness were starting to, you know, really permeate, you know, on social media a lot more. So Meredith for our listeners who don't know, can you define what Black Twitter is and explain the origins of it? Absolutely. So I tell people there's no special knock, there's not a separate platform, there's not a special portal that you can go to to get to Black Twitter. Secret Club, Illuminati. You know, there's there's there's there's there's there's there's there's there's there's there's there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no there's no special there's no special special special there's no special there's no special special there's no special their special there's no special special there's no special there's no special there's no special there's no special there's no special there's no special, there's no special, there's no special, there's no special, there's no special, there's no special, there's no special. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. there's no special. there's no special. there's no special. there's no special. there's no special their. their s. their s. their s, their s special their special their s special their s special their s special their. their s special special there's no special. that you can go to to get to black Twitter. There's a club, Illuminati.

You know, there's no secret handshake that will get you into black twitters. But there are two ways of thinking about it. The short version that I tell people, black Twitter is black people on Twitter, being black on Twitter, being our black selves, having a good time, doing what we do. The long answer is that Black Twitter is a series of black communities of folks who are linked together talking about things that are of concern to our various communities. And I really stress that plural idea of communities. So everything from racial justice, which we've seen a lot of conversations about, to what it's like to be on the dating market today. We've got a lot of conversations about to what it's like to be on the dating market today.

We've got a lot of conversations about relationships. So every single way that people can come together and be connected from Greek life and HBCU life to just being black living in a certain part of the country or a certain part of the world, that is Black Twitter. Also food. There's a lot of food critiquing on Black Twitter. Struggle plates. If you post a plate of food, you might break your grandmama's hard because Black Twitter pulls no punches. None. Marikisha could tell us.

Okay. I mean, honestly. I'm not wrong. It's interesting because, you know, there can be days on Twitter where it is something as simple as, I can't believe you put mayonnaise on a hot dog, and the next day it's should you spend $200 on a first date. And then the next day, it's free Brittany Griner. And all three of those conversations happen with the same level of ferocity and engagement. And God bless your soul, if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of some of that stuff. We call that getting ratioed. We'll break that down on another podcast.

But, you know, this piece was set, the piece that we did, we decided to set it in a barbershop. Because we felt like the barbershop, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in a th, in a th, in a th, in a the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the same, the, thi, thi, was set, the piece that we did, it was we decided to set it in a barbershop because we felt like the barbershop, you know, in a sense for black culture is one of the many public squares that we have within the black community. And so, you know, you know, for Michael, you know, how is black Twitter a part of a history of community spaces and publications for black people together and share their stories? Well, you know, in a their their their their their their th. th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi thi thi thus, thus, this this this thi, this this thus, thi, this thi, thia thia thia thi, thia thea thea thea theaqqqqqqis. thea, thia, thia, thi. thia, thu. thu. thu. thu. thu. thu. the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the is that, that, that, that, that, that, that, thi that thi thi thea thea thea thea ta ta ta ta ta ta tha tha thea thea thea thea thea for black people together and share their stories. Well, in a sense, it is like the barbershop. You know, it's a communal place where we share information, where we share our opinions, where we share, you know, what we think of everything going on around us. And, you know, although we like to think that this is new, you know, it goes back to the history of black media, you know, you're talking about the North Star, you're talking about black newspapers, black radio. All of that is part of the evolution that ended or has

currently become black Twitter. You know, when you think about black radio, you know, white people were on a radio talking like this and then all of a sudden black people were talking the way they talked in jazz clubs on the radio and it flowed outside of the radio. It flowed into normal culture and became part of the lexicon of America and in a sense black Twitter is doing the same thing. Is black Twitter the right place to have these discussions because unlike the barbershop, unlike the beauty salon, unlike the church fellowship hall, this is a place where everyone can get in on the conversation. And, you know, we talk a little bit about, you know, cultural appropriation. Does having these moments and enjoying things communally in a public forum make us more susceptible to people coming in who don't necessarily understand the origins of the conversation, don't

or oblivious to the appropriation that they're they they they they they they they they they they they th they they th they they th th th th they're th th th th th th th th th th th th th their th they're theto the appropriation that they're doing. I think it's a little bit of both, you know. There is a certain level of resistance that I think about that is taking place, whether we are willing participants in that resistance or not, but showing up and being ourselves and bringing the whole of our experiences to this platform is one way that by default, black people are resisting the pressures and the expectations, the norms, that we do keep those conversations quiet, that we keep the family business inside the house, and that we don't engage in the same ways that we would with each other in enclave spaces in a very public way. The downside of that, unfortunately in many cases, is that people extract our conversations,

just as you said, without context, without any sort of real connection to what is being discussed. And they often do it for profit, for clout, for their own sort of privilege on to what is being discussed and they often do it for profit, for clout, for their own sort of privilege on the platform and so you'll see things that Black Twitter talks about one day and suddenly it's a trend. It has this agenda disrupting function and the news media is all over it as though it's something that journalists discovered in and of themselves when in fact it's people swooping into our conversations, you know the old old th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thi old old old old old old thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho-in, tho, tho, tho, the the the their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their their, their, their, their, their th.. th. th. th. thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi. thi. thoooooooooooooooooo-s, thi. thoo-s, so so thi. thi. thi, of themselves, when in fact it's people swooping into our conversations, you know, the old thing that we used to say back in the 90s, getting the cullade, don't know the flavor, it's common. We're sort of used to that. We've seen it in everything from our music and what we create to our intellectual production and

the same things happening on the platform. We talked in season one or beyond the scenes about people who steal from you know black Tick-Tockers and how the things that they do and the trends that they create are not properly. You know they're not compensated for a lot of that stuff but you know we can go back I think was it 2014 or 15 with the girl Peaches on flea. Yes, Miss Peaches Monro. Yeah, Peaches Monroe. Yeah. Eyebrows on flea and everybody was saying on flea. But you're telling me, can't nobody figure out that it was that young lady who said, really? Right, right.

Like the damn Daniel guys, you know, they had deals with vans and all of this other stuff. And I have comes out with pancakes on flea and everybody's brand has something that's on flea, but no one's cutting this young woman a check. And that's sort of the downside. Folks are like, you know, Twitter's terms of service for so many years for so many years, for so many years, for so many years, for so many years, black folks have been taken, taken from us, what youosed and we see the same thing happening with black Twitter. Is Twitter a place though, Michael, where I guess, black Twitter?

Because you talked about one time, we got into a conversation online about actors who were black famous, where you have reached the peak level of stardom with black people, but a white person is like, I don't quite know who you are exactly, but every black person knows you, knows you. So when you look at something like that, right, we talk about like that, like, that conversation being so inclusive. Does it rub you the wrong way when you see other people that you know are not necessarily of our culture jumping in and joining those types of conversations that are very much, you know, family discussions.

I think if you're having that discussion right on Twitter, then like my perception is that you have to care more about what white people think if you're going to be mad at that, right? Like, I am, when I to, when, when, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, that, that that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, thi, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, they, they, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, the the the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the, the, the, to, to care more about what white people think if you're going to be mad at that, right? Like, when I talk to black people, then I am looking at the responses of black people, and I know that the people outside of the culture who respond don't know what they're talking about. It's not like if it's a doctor going in asking somebody about diabetes and a dude on the corner off is an

opinion. The doctor doesn't take that opinion into consideration because he knows that that person didn't go to medical school and that's the same thing way I feel like oh there's so certain people like I play a game with myself sometimes while I'll tweet something that I know only black people care about or know what I'm talking about. And it's funny to me to see the white people trying to figure out what we're talking about. And so to be mad at those things, right? Because it's on Twitter, you're basically posting it onto a public billboard or a bulletin board.

If you're going to do that, you have to know that white people are going to see it and you know white people are going to Say something about it or respond and It's up to you whether or not that weighs in To has some value to you or is just something that somebody's saying as they walk past this billboard But so then how do we bridge the gap? How do we bridge the gap from? Black Twitter being this place that drives the narrative? th. the narrative. the narrative. the narrative. the narrative. the the the the th.. the narrative. the narrative. the narrative. the narrative. the narrative. the narrative. the the narrative. the the the the th. th. th. thi. the the tho. the th. their they. they. to to to their their their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I's. I's. th. th. th. to. to. to. to. to. to. toe. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. they. they. they bridge the gap? How do we bridge the gap from black Twitter being this place that drives the narrative of conversation, especially with, oh my god, when we talk about whatever show is the hottest show, live tweet and that was scandal? You can dig in the crates to go all the way back to pop a pop pop memes and all of that type of stuff and insecure and like all of these live viewing experiences and the new edition movie? Oh my god, that was a nice. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. That. Oh, the nice, the nice, the nice, the the the the the the the the narrative, Oh, the the the the narrative, Oh, Oh, the narrative, Oh, Oh, Oh, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the narrative, the the the narrative, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. th. th. that the th. th. the the th. the the the th. th. the the th. the the th. the the th. the th. the these live viewing experiences and the new edition movie oh my god that was a that was a nice two three days. So we know that black Twitter is a driver of culture but does the media at large using the conversations that happen on Twitter, you know trending topics and stuff like that.

Has that made journalists more lazy in taking the temperature of what the public at large is into or viving with? So it's two sides to that, right? Because, you know, journalism is mostly a white profession, right? I think, you know, in the major news organizations, it's at most 6% black. So for most of history, what we call mainstream, which is translated as white media, would only consider, you know, or include the opinions of white people, because they weren't no black, weren't no white people telling the truth about black people, and there were no black people in the newsroom saying,uth about black people and there were no black people in

the the newsroom saying hey you you might have this wrong and so in a sense you know they could go on Twitter now and see what black people are saying about a certain thing that they might not have access to in the newsroom or as just as a white person like you know one of the things I do like when I covered Ferguson or Baltimore right and it's a thing that I th th th th that I that I that I that I that I that I th th that I th th that I th th th th th. th. th. th. thi thi thi thi thi the the the the the the the thi thi the. the. the. the. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the. the. the. the. theat theateeateateateeateate. theeateeate. theate. theeeeeate. theeeeate. things I do, like when I covered Ferguson or Baltimore, right? And it's the thing that I do when I cover anything that happens in a black neighborhood. Now y'all would know this.

If you go to the store, it's always one store in that neighborhood, where you could just go, and there's people in climate of that neighborhood, right? White people can't do that. White people don't even know that. They can, and then if they go, you know, it's a white man holding a microphone versus you know somebody who looks like them, who talks like them, who knows what to ask them, who is going to be sympathetic. So, you know, the two sides, right.

there are two sides, right? In some aspects, Twitter gives us a voice that we wouldn't have never had in mainstream media and on the other side it does make, you know, give white journalists more access than they would have had as white journalists. So it kind of prevents newsrooms from, you know, hiring black people because they can say, oh, you could just go ask somebody on Twitter. Take a Twitter poll instead of just going to a black neighborhood. We don't have to hire a black dude to go look into the black stuff and report the black news. As a journalism professor, one of the things that I teach my students all the time is that you, it's like the analogy that Michael made earlier. You don't necessarily listen to the guy who didn't go to medical school school school school school school school school school school school school school to to to to to to to to to to the school school school school school school school school the the the to to the the to the the to the the the the to the to the to to to the to to the to the the the the to to to to to to to to to to to the to to to to to to to to to to to to the the to the the the the to to to to to to to to to the to to to the the to the to the the the the the the the the their.... their. their. their. their. the the the their te. te. twea.u. twea.u. the twea. the twea. the the thea. the thea. thea. toooooo just take what the guy on the corner is saying at face value, right? And that's akin to what I see with taking these tweets out of context,

embedding them in a story or making them the story. You know, there's a big difference between source development and then just straight up co-optation. It's possible for journalists to get on Twitter to actually develop sources on Twitter to reach out to people, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, the the the th, th, th, th, th, th, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thin thin, thin, and the, thin, the, and that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's, and that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's thin's thin's thin, the the thin's thean's thean's thean's thin's akin that's that's akin that's akin that's that's akin that's that's that's that's that's that's that's th get on Twitter, to actually develop sources on Twitter, to reach out to people, you know, the DMs are there, you can reach out and say, hey, I see you tweeting about this thing, can we have a conversation about it, and effectively reach more black people than they would with shoe leather reporting that they're supposed to be doing, but maybe don't have the time to do. but to just simply take what you see or observe what you see and report on that, that's what led us to a lot of mis-and-disinformation

in communities in around the 2016 election. It's what leads to a warped sense of what black people in America are experiencing today, because you're going to get on black Twitter, all kinds of the all different walks of life. If you show up with one narrative out of that, then you've done a major disservice to reporting on black folks in America at large. You know, if like somebody goes on Twitter and like Roy said something and I said something, you know, to a white person it becomes or to a white reporter a lot of times it

that's it. This is what black people think. Oh my God. It's you know what I have to do now Michael I have to when something breaks and I got a joke or I have an opinion I have to wait 36 hours. I have to wait for those articles to run because if I make the joke about the thing and I'm just being silly. It's not what my intention was, it's how it's presented. The truth and the truth is what people choose to believe. So when they go, people, oh perfect, this is a, this isn't as serious of an example, but this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. They announced earlier this year that the Choco Taco was going to get discontinued. And I made a quick tweet thinkink think think think thi quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick think think thin thin thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the thi the the the thi thi thi thi thi the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. th. things. things. thin. things. things. I'm things. I'm just things. I'm just things. I'm just things. things. things. things. things. things. things. things. things. things. I things. I things. I'm things. I'm th. that the Chaco Taco was going to get discontinued and I made a quick tweet just just didn't even think about I'm watching Better Call Saul and just tweeting Chaco taco ain't that good and the drumstick is terrible to

send phone down wake up the next morning and I'm in two or three different compilation tweet articles going people are outrage. Roywood Jr. is very adamant. No I wasn't. That's not what and the same thing can happen with what political tweets if I make if I say something about the selection or this we did you know we did a little sketch about Herschel Walker and the whole illegitimate children thing or whatever and that got put in an article with the other Herschel Walker twe whole illegitimate children thing or whatever and that got put in the article with the other Herschel Walker tweak tweak tweak. So now you have people in my DMs and I can only imagine what your DMs are like Michael because your ass be going in way harder than me half the time and you have people ready to jump on you about stuff and I'm like I was just tweeating. Yeah, but you also have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the people. people people people the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they. the the they. people. people. people the th. people th. people th. people th. people th. people th. people the the th. people. people the the the the the the the the the have to understand just like I was saying earlier right those people don't know what they're

talking about. If they're just scanning tweets and see one of my tweets and included in a compilation of tweets they don't know what I'm talking about. They don't know about black people, they don't know about me, they don't know what I'm talking about the subject what the subject what the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the subject, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, they're, they're, they're, they're, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, is their, is their, their, they is twee's, twee's, twee's twee's twee. is twee. twee. their their, their, their, their, the about, the subject that I'm talking about. And so, you know, in a sense, again, you have to ascribe to what white people say, some level of importance to even care about that thing, right? I do not care what white people are thinking when I'm talking to black people. Now, not what white people are thinking,

but when I'm talking to my people, the people who do not know what I'm talking about have no value in that conversation though. You know like everybody black person knows like you can, it's certain cousins you can't sit next to at a funeral. It's not that they're making a mockery of the dead, it's just that they joke, crack jokes all the time. And you know if your mama look back the see you, she's going to say you're being disrespectful to the church, to God, to Jesus, to the dead person. But she was not listening to your cousin,

crack those jokes. And it was a good joke. Why they bury him in that jacket? That is a dead. You know he never had no stoop like that even on past his anniversary. Now they got him dead. Going to heaven. Why you button the jacket? Open the jacket up.

After the break, I would love to get into the ways that Black Twitter contributes to the counter-narrative and pushes back against the stereotypes that mainstream media pushes. And also, you know, I want to unpack a little bit about the social justice side of Black Twitter and the number of things that I believe were able to happen because there were people on the internet raising noise and raising hell. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We are talking about Black Twitter. Now we've broken down what it is, how it's used, how people misuse it, and some of the topics that are discussed on Black Twitter.

But Meritiff, I want to get to the serious side of it now and how Black Twitter is able to influence, you know, conversations. You know, you've often referred to, you know, Black Twitter having the ability to, to create a digital counter-narrative and shift the way th, th, th, th th th th th th th th th th the way way way way way way way way way way the way the way the way th th th the way th th th th the ability to to create a digital counter narrative and you know shift the way that black people are depicted in the mainstream media. What did you mean by that exactly and how does black Twitter help help to contribute to that? Yeah so I talk about black Twitter creating counter narratives because as a journalist and as someone who studies journalism in the way that we communicate I think about how news media has the potential to shape our social realities, right? So the issues of the day, the way that they're reported on, that's the way people understand them. And we know that to be true, especially about black folks with a kind of coverage that we've gotten. Over the years, we see coverage about our communities that is generally crime-focused.

When you see more than one black face, they are either a public figure like a celebrity or a politician, or they're an athlete. We see those over-representations. And we see this coverage that gives you a singular narrative about black people and black life in America. What Black Twitter does is pushes back on those narratives and it allows us to present multiple narratives all at the same time about our lived experiences. So everything from the way that we experienced the workplace, right? We talked about one of the hashtags that's near and dear to my heart,

black in the ivory, so what it's like to be black in academia, but we talk about everything from our hair and what it means when someone what it's like to be black in academia. But we talk about everything from our hair and what it means when someone touches it, to what legislation that is going to impact our communities is like. I think one case that really stands out to me about black folks and counter-narrative is the assumption that all black people are Democrats and willingly and enthusiastically voting Democrat, right. But then you saw out of black Twitter a hashtag like girl I guess I'm with her

the resignation that people had in 2016 like yeah Hillary. Around Hillary Clinton. You know we're not excited about her candidacy but if it's going to save America which we try to do, then we're going to vote for her. And so that's what I mean when I talk about digital counter-narratives. The digital allows us to do it all in the same place at the speed of light and in a number of different voices all at the same time and that's really important to getting a more accurate picture of what our lives are like. It has also become a place where there's been real reporting happening in real time and so then it can't be spun by anybody in

the media about it, ooh I guess it's coming up on two years Mike, post-Charlotsville and the rise of the, let me just call it, how are we gonna spend this? The motivated public unpermitted removal of the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their the the the the the the the the the the the the their. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the the. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the. the. the the. the the the the. the the. the the the. the. the let me just call it how are we going to spend this. The motivated public unpermitted removal of Confederate monuments across this nation was occurring in a lot of different spots and a series of motivated fine citizens were showing up to the local town squares and tie ropes to statues and getting them shits up out of there as they should have. And you know, things in Birmingham got a little their their their the their the their their their their their permit permit. their their their their their un. their un. un. un. un. unit. unit. unit. unit. unit. their their their their their their their their their unit. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their unit. unit. unit. un. un. un. un. un. un. un. un. un. the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the un. the the the the the tun. the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their town squares and turning ropes to statues and getting them shit up out of there as they should have and you know things in Birmingham got a little you know unsettled and Michael I remember you being one of the journalists who like this concept of journalistically I will go there and tomorrow you will have my report but there's also no let me tell you

tell you all right now before somebody take my phone because the police might be tripping let me the... How much has Black Twitter been an asset in making sure that as a journalist you're able to deliver the truth faster? Yeah, well, so what Roy is talking about is I was arrested covering a protest over a confederate monument and the Klan supposedly coming to show up. Everything was stripped from me, but luckily I had a watch, an Apple watch on and was able to tweet that I've been arrested. And that was the only way that people knew I'd been arrested for covering a protest. They wouldn't believe I was a journalist. They wouldn't believe anything that I said. And it was Black Twitter that basically got me out of jail. Someone called

the lawyer and literally, you know, bailed me out. So, you know, it's important to activist. When you think about it, right, it's important to justice. You think about the people who were convicted of Derek Shoven being convicted of killing George Floyd. Well, the main reason he was convicted was because there was a bunch of black people around holding cameras. They would not have been holding those cameras and recording him if there was not a place for them to show that footage unfiltered. For the previous, you know, 250 years all we had was what the police told us, right? I have been a journalist in a newsroom watching other journalists just copy

and paste the police report into an article about what happened at certain incidents. And now, because of the transparency offered by Black Twitter, we can counter those narratives of rioting or police brutality or many of the issues that black people have faced and white people simply wouldn't be active because they didn't believe us. Yeah, which also changes the nature of reporting on top of that. That's why I always love when I see, you know a black person

and post something good when you look into replies to the tweet and it's like some news organization, hey, can we use this clip? There's some good reporting right here, is it? Or do you authorize us? When we talk about, you know, the hashtags that Twitter uses, which I think is an important, I don't like this about activism, but I understand why we need it, therefore it is important. Black Twitter has a way of boiling things down to a sentence, or in Twitter's case, it's a hashtag. Like if we just go, Black Lives Matter, Oscar so white, everything can sit comfortably under that umbrella. I do think that some issues are a little more

nuance and it's like abolish the police. If you ask 10 black people what they mean when they say abolish the police, you're going to get about three or four different constructs of what that concept is. So sometimes hashtags don't always give the nuance that I think a topic needs, but the hashtag brings attention and it starts the conversation and in a lot of cases it actually brings about some type of change. Meredith, like, could you talk a little bit about how those hashtags have contributed to action, you know, offline? Absolutely. So I talk about this as I write about it as the process of affirmation and reaffirmation. So when we tweet with these these these these these these these these the the the the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag with the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag. the hashtag. the hashtag. the hashtag. the hashtag. the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag. the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag the hashtag. the hashtag. the process of affirmation and reaffirmation.

So when we tweet with these hashtags and someone responds to them in a number of ways, like the retweeting, the quote tweeting, the building on what we've said, that's affirmation. You know that someone else online has heard what you've said. Reaffirmation is what happens when those hashtags go offline and they are used to a certain end. I actually moved to Charlottesville the day after the so-called events of August 11th and 12th with the white supremacist march. Find people on both sides. Man, listen, I wasn't very interested in figuring that out with my new neighbors, but one thing that carried over from online to offline were all these black lives matter signs. I saw them everywhere and it was a th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th the the the the the th the thi thi the th th th th th th. I th th. I th th th th th th th thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I th. I thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the the the the the the the to the to the to to the the the to the the the the the the the the the the the thing that carried over from online to offline were all these black lives matter signs. I saw them everywhere and it was a way for people to sort of signal that I'm one of the

good ones, right? I'm an okay person. This wasn't me, this wasn't Charlottesville. And so in a number of ways, we see hashtags sort of doing the hard work of communicating to people what the aims of a particular slogan or a particular message are. In the case of something like defund the police or abolish the police, I don't think that you know those have been as effective as they could have been. You can see how very quickly the message gets

misappropriated, it gets misinterpreted because when when people talk about defund, they're not just simply talking about cutting off the budget numbers, but they are pushing you to have a conversation about what it would be like to redirect the millions of dollars that we spend in policing and over-policing black and brown communities in particular and put that back into the services that are needed in the community to make sure that we don't need to call police or to fortify our neighborhoods. If people can read it's less crime. Exactly. If you got jobs it's less crime. Exactly. Keep going. You know so no that's it that's it that in so many ways the hashtags have basically cut through the the bureaucracy and the conversations and have forced people to say hey hey thtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttthe th th th th th th th. th. th. th. thi that the th. that that that that. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to to to the to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. toe. their their bureaucracy and the conversations and have forced people

to say, hey, this is a different direction that we should at least listen to or think about. There's another part of this conversation that we need to have. I would argue that, like, you know, the stuff like, defund the police and people getting lazy and just wanting to tweet Black Lives Matter, those people people were going to do anyway. Like the people who just tweet Black Live Matter and say that's their activism, they weren't going to do anything for black people anyway. The people who are arguing against the hashtag defund the police, they are going to not

support any effort to reform policing in America anyway. And it could have been anything like, you the the the the the the the, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, you the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, thoome, like, like, like, like that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's threathea, like, like, threathea, threathea, threaten, threaten, the people who the people who threaten, the people who threaten, threaten, threaten, the, threaten, threaten, threaten, threaten, the police is just the thing that they latched on to cast the gate. And it could have been anything like, you know, the civil rights movements, they were communists. And black power movement was anti-white, right? So whatever black people say, they're going to be a contingent of people who are saying the opposite. Those people are going to exist regardless of whether it's on Twitter or in a newspaper, on TV, or on the radio. And so I don't think black people's hashtags are turning white people negative, but I do think

it is coalescing a group of people of black people who was like, I thought I was the only one who thought we should defund the police. Like I thought I was the only one who had the idea of decreasing police funding. And those people see like-minded people on the internet and it coalesces into a movement. So I think overall is good because the negative people were going to be negative regardless of what the hashtag was. It was like, take a dollar away from the police. They would have never going to be a phrase. There was never going to be a magic phrase that pays that got them on board. Okay but then if we talk about the effectiveness of of hashtags like if we just go with Brittany Griner and

everything that is that is transpired with Brittany Griner and as we talked about in the first break the media follows a lot of what black people be talking about and then they present that as the national conversation on the thing. And sometimes it could be misinformation, sometimes y'all could just be pulling tweets about us talking about Beyonce, whatever, whatever, right? But then that same media is also the one that would listen to the ways that people were, you know, because this is bigger than what people in the WNBA were doing, but then it was also Black Twitter that was taking those clips and putting those clips out on social to build more awareness

about what was happening with Brittany Griner and making sure that that conversation did not fall to the back page, you know, to the back page of, you know, newspapers and conversation. So in a way does that same media attention to Black Twitter when it's stuff that really ain't their business and they don't know really know and they get it wrong does that same media attention to some degree help create momentum for a lot of these conversations like even like if you say like even if we don't go Brittany Griner we go further back with bring back our girls. You know I'll be honestthat's one, when we talk about abduction, I was extremely educated by that hashtag.

So does the attention that Black Twitter gets from mainstream media in the case of activism, does it help? Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, on the whole right, because, I mean, when we talk about journalism, we talk about news, it's just like music, it's just like art, is just like every other thing in America. Like white people are going to follow what black people do. Like by the time they're talking about it, we've had the conversation.

So you know, in a sense, it amplifies the conversations that black people were having yesterday, today and, you know, take this, you know, the conversation around police brutality. You know, a lot of people think, well, you know, since Obama, black people really became, you know, obsessed and mad about police brutality. While Luther King was talking about police brutality in the I Have a Dream speech, right? So, in a sense, our conversation about police brutality has come to white people's attention because of the conversations we were having online, because of the hashtag Black Lives Matter, because we were posting those videos.

Now they have evidence that it's not just, you know, a couple of people in Detroit and a couple of mad people in LA over Rodney King. It is a national thing that transcends geography and time and, you know, the police departments. It's a national problem. And I think that's what Black Twitter and social media, black people or social media, give voice to our concerns. Yeah, I think that the contributions that Black Twitter makes to national coverage of the issues

that matter to us with things like Brittany Griner, that is one of the cases that's particularly nuanced because the message that we got from the federal government was that we didn't want to make a big fuss about this in case of some diplomatic issues, right? So there's this problem that we now have to navigate as black folks, like how do we advocate for one of our own and make sure that her name stays on people's minds and make sure that people don't forget that she's there and that we need to bring her home, but also not put her in danger? We're already dealing with the devaluation of black life in our home country, right? And now we've got to deal with it as a diplomatic problem. We've basically all been

deputized into the State Department at this point that we are having to act as a diplomatic core to at least get our news media to pay attention to this story and to continue to keep the focus on it. I think Black Twitter does an excellent job with that and it's just as Michael said, you know, this is bringing up things that we have been talking about for years. We've talked for years about our mistreatment when we visit other countries. We may not have been arrested. We may not be detained, we may not be held by a country that for a long time, like as long as I've been alive, has been considered an enemy of the United States, how we got shummy with Russia in the last few years, I still don't understand. You don't understand. You know true. Listen, I'm try to be nice. I'm try to be nice.

But you know, we have talked about this. We've talked about what it's like to be mistreated in another country and to know that the U.S. government is not necessarily going to come to your aid. And so now we're pushing people to have more of that conversation and to say this is not just about a high-profile basketball star, a queer woman who is locked up in Russia because of some trumped-up charges. This is about what it is like to be black in this world. And to know that even though y'all tell us, y'aa, y'a, y'a, y'a, you you you you, you, you, they'a, thiiii, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, thi, to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to their, and their, and their, their, and their, their, tho, thr-s, the the thr-s.eooooooooo, the the the the the.e, thean, thr-s, the thr-s, too, too, too black in this world and to know that even though y'all tell us that we're not grateful for being citizens here you show us that you're not really invested in us being a part of America and this is an example of that. And so it brings all of those nuances to the conversation into the

coverage in ways that we haven't been able to have those conversations before. Talk a little bit, both of you about the political influence that Black, to have those conversations before. Talk a little bit, both of you, about the political influence that Black Twitter has had. You know, when we talk about Georgia flipping blue and a couple of years before that, Doug Jones taken old Roy Moore off the sticks in Alabama, and as an Alabama, and I know part of that happened because they were literally organizing, driving people to the polls and all of the gerrymandered-ass districts where the polling station was way off the city bus route. So the influence that Black Twitter has on elections

and its ability to get people registered to vote, you know, how much do you, do we have, here's the question, here's a question of both of you. Do we have Barack Obama and Stacey Abrams without social media? Oh, definitely not, right? Neither, not even, Obama maybe? Because he was like early, Obama was my space-ish. No, no, no, no. No, but so, so I was living in South Carolina

when Obama ran in 2008 and I was covering him. There's no way, like the black people in South Carolina would have even considered that a black man could be president if not for social media. Because everybody around them in South Carolina like one of the most racist states in the country would have said ain't no way like they'll kill him first, right? But when we saw the momentum build online, remember one of the things that social media does a black Twitter does is wipe away the constraints of having to depend on the narrative given by white people right so you know Hillary Clinton remember everybody thought that Hillary Clinton was the shoe in

for that race and yeah yeah we all did right and and right right right and and the the other things right right right right. right. right. right. right. right. right. right. right. right. right. right. Right. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their their their their their their things. things. things. things. things. things. things. things. their their their their their their their their their their their thethat Hillary Clinton was the shoe in for that race. And, yeah, Hillary thought it. Yeah, we all did. Right. And the only people who weren't saying it was, like, the people online saying, I think I'm going to just support this brother and see what's happening. And then we saw so many people do it that we saw that it was possible. And the same can be true with Staceyacy a and definitely, you know, a Democrat winning and becoming a senator in Alabama.

Like no one would have thought that was possible. Black people, specifically black women in Alabama and they did that and their organizing was done a lot of it online. Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia as well. I'm sorry, Mary, go ahead. Oh yeah, no. I wholeheartedly agree. And even going back as far as Barack Obama's election, there are a number of case studies that look at how the Obama campaigns made effective use of social media messaging.

And honestly, presidential campaigns and gubernatorial races and Senate races, those all follow a certain part, a chapter or two of the Obama playbook. Because what the Obama campaign showed was how you could directly connect with people who feel like they are disenfranchised, who know that they are disenfranchised, energize them and get them to be a part of the political process. That is the way that Barack Obama was able to win. He was able to push past sort of those, those, those, those, th of tho, tho, tho, th, th, tho, th, th, th, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thi, thi, thi, thi, thoooooooooooo, too, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the political process. That is the way that Barack Obama was able to win. He was able to push past sort of those people who were disenchanted and jaded with the systems as we knew it and

get through on a message of hope. Hope? Are you kidding me? Hope does not necessarily move people to take time off of work to go out and vote. So effective messaging and being able to communicate with people where they are used to receiving messages and also where they see those messages supported by people they know and trust, that is what makes the difference. And that is why we were able to see some victories in Georgia with Georgia flipping blue with mobilizing voters in Alabama, but I think that it is short-sighted to say that that is the only driver.

And you know, we can look at gerrymandering and all of the redistricting that's being done now and see exactly where the next part of the playbook has to come into play. Let's talk for a second here just you know about people who try to infiltrate these conversations and influence and change them you know it's one thing to have bots but then we also have people that try to permeate these conversations and pretend to be black and they try to talk with little black slang they try to put a little as E40 would call it, put a little slang which on their conversation.

How much of a threat are those types of people to the conversations at large happening on black Twitter? Not much, because like black people know, like you know when it's a white person pretending to be black, you can tell. And then, you know, when they try to spread their their their their the white the white the white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white person. the white white white white person. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the white. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. th. the. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. know, when they try to spread disinformation, you can tell when it's, you know, a person who is susceptible to disinformation is going to be susceptible to any kind of different disinformation, right? But the people who, you know, are smart, like, you're on the internet when you're looking at Twitter, right? You can go Google, everything somebody tells you. So, you know, I always say, man, like, like, like, like, to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their a their a their a the the the the the person a the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their a their their their their their their their their their their their th.au.au. trueau. trueau. trueau. thi. thi. thi. the the the the the the the the the the the can go Google everything somebody tells you. So, you know, I always say, man, like you got to be able to distinguish between the dumb people and the smart people because

there is no font, special font for dumb people, right? There's no stupid font. You know, that's the same size and the same, it's not italicized or anything as the people who know things, right? But the good thing is you're on the internet, right? And it's not like that opinion or that disinformation or that stupid thing that people say is not sandwiched between something that a smart person says or something said by somebody who actually knows things. And I always tell people, like, you don't you just talk to people, look for people who know things, and let's take their information on the subject in which they know.

Because like, you know, there's, like, I love Lebron James and I think he is one of the smartest basketball players in the world, but I'm not listening to Lebron James, give they, they, to, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, the, the, thin, the, the, the, thi, thi, the, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, let, let, let, their, their, and, their, and, their, and, their, and, their, and, and, and, their, their, and, and, their, and, their, the, and, their, their, their, their, their, th, th....... thin, thin, thin, to, to, to, to, to, too, tomorrow, too, their, their, their, their, their, smart people who know things about the things they are talking about. Like the old addicts you don't take recipes from skinny people you've ever heard. Yes, exactly. One thing that Michael brings up that I appreciate but I also sometimes have some trouble with like you can find anything on the internet. And one thing that we are now seeing a lot of problems with is But I also sometimes have some trouble with, like, you can find anything on the internet. And one thing that we are now seeing a lot of problems with is, although you can go and

you can verify information that you find, you really have to be careful about that verification. Because there are folks who spend their whole lives creating information sub-ecosystems, where they put out info that helps confirm the misleading beliefs that you are beginning to accept, right? But one thing about Black Twitter, and I think that sort of inoculates us against this, is if you look at the structures of Black Twitter and how Black Twitter really came to be, it was first, people were there because people that they knew were there. And if you go back to that level of personal communities, when someone

is spitting misinformation and you start talking to other people in your life away from the keyboard offline about what they are spitting, that's where you start running into some of the dissonance that makes you go search out the information that you need to find out what the truth is. And Sophia Noble's book, her Algorithms of Oppression, she talked about very extensively how you can't just tell folks to go Google something because Google's an ad company, right? They get paid to bring you information based on how different subscribers are turning over ad dollars.

So we really have to take some care with people, and I think about that specifically with folks who are older and folks who are younger. My mom had questions for me about 5G. And I had to sit down and have a patient conversation with her, a non-judgmental one about what this was all about, even though people in her social groups were talking about things they heard on the internet. I also have to have the same sort of conversations with my 10-year-old niece about what she sees on the internet and what is real and what is not, and that even though you can go to a website and find something that says, X, Y, Z, that may not necessarily be so.

So we have to talk about some of that information and parsing it and making sure that it is what it purports to be as well. To that point about misinformation after the break, the break, the break, the the the the thiiiiii, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thirty, thr. I, thi, thi, thr. I's, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, tho, tho, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, th. And, thi. And, thin, thin, thin. And, thin, thr. And, thr. And, toooooooooooooooooooo. And, ty. And, tha. And, tha. And, thin. And, thin. And, th about misinformation after the break we're going to bring this conversation home. Michael I want to talk to you about your book that you've written that is all about giving people the real information the real history. This book so real already this probably already banned CRT. Are you on the ban list yet? If not it's gonna be man, but it's coming. That's how you know it's good because they're trying to ban it. Beyond the scenes, we'll be right back. Bringing it home, we're talking about, you know, black Twitter. I want to talk about the future of it in a second, but first, Meredith, what do they say? What do they say on Clubhouse? I want to dovetail if I can't. If if they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they th. th. they th. th. th. th. that. that. they say? What do they say on Clubhouse? I want to dovetail if I could piggyback off or something.

No piggybacking. There are the piggybacks over here. You can expand. You can expand. We talk about seeking truths, seeking understanding about what our history is and how many different digital potholes have been set up to obstruct us from getting those truths. And Michael, you're, you know, you're fighting back against that, you know, personally, you know, you're using Black Twitter to educate people about, you know, these untold stories of American history.

The book is black, I'm gonna say it, black as fuck history, the unwhite-washed story, but for the title, because I know the publisher can't put ass fuck so they put black AF history and that's coming out in January 23 What was your breaking point? You go you know what damn. I got to write a book. I'm tired of all of this I'm sick of it. Y'all keep twisting and remixing the truth. Where my keyboard? So I was homeschooled and so it wasn't until recently that, you know, when all these conversations about the Confederacy and all of this, the founders and Jefferson, when all those started, I realized, oh, people just don't know stuff about history. Like, you know, I didn't know how little the average American knows about history.

And then, like, it was a couple of years ago when I realized, oh, they learned about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and all that stuff and how great they were. And then like six, seven years later, they learn about slavery. And that's why they can't like comport that the founding fathers were also human traffickers. And so what this book is, is the story of black people in America. And so we ain't talking about James Garfield's political campaign. We're talking about what black people were going to, our perspectives, and the unwhite watch,

the unerased stories that we've been missing from our history books like for instance like nobody like when I used to ask people about head rights and they always say what was that and I was like oh y'all didn't know like the first people that came to America got 50 acres for every slave that they brought here so people were thinne to do the white people's work and to make them And I was like, no, the slaves is what made the white people wealthy, right? But nobody knows about head rights. And it was how the blue blood families of this country gained their wealth. Not from owning the stuff that slaves produced, but the actual bodies of the slaves,

is what gave them their power and their intergeneration of wealth that is still persisted to this day. So like that's what this book is about, like these untold stories that like they just skipped over when you were in the sixth grade social studies class. Mayor, when we talk about that misinformation, you know, I am a product of public schools. And when I thinkthink shut out to Birmingham, Center Street, Middle School, Ramsey High School. I know that white book publishers are part of the issue when it comes to misinformation and omissions from history and CRT is boiling up now and they want to take more history out of

the textbooks and referred to the enslaved, what was they trying to refer to to the enslaved as in the Texas? Indentured servants. Voluntary involi. In a a to to to to to to to their to to their to to refer to the enslaved ass in the Texas? Indentured servants. Voluntary, involuntary, immigrant? It's some remixed-ass word to try to take the pain and the truth out of what actually happened. How do we create more fair representation of the contributions of black people in American history? And you know, and how, and what role does entertainment play? In that as well. Hollywood, you know? Some of the things that we have to think of

are using the tools that we have available to us. That is one thing that black people in the United States that is one thing that black people in the today. And black people throughout the world. I specifically refer to our history in the United States because when I wrote about black Twitter I used what the opening salvo was of the first black newspaper that was published in the United States. And that was my twist on it. It was we wish to plead our own cause.

And so in the same way that Michael talks about this being, you know, just another medium, the facts are there. We have used every medium that has existed to tell the stories as they were, not as people wanted them to be. So black newspaper publishers wrote about what it was like to be black in that era. They covered the civil rights movement when white newspapers would not want to. My hometown paper, the Lexington Herald Leader, had to publish a front-page apology in the early 2000s

about their failure to cover the civil rights movement, or they neglected, actually is the word, that they neglected to cover the civil rights movement, and apologize for that error. But we were there using their their their their their their their their their their, their, their, their, their, there, there, there, there, there, there, but we were there using our cameras, using newspapers, using magazines, radio, even programs in church, right, to tell the story of our people in its entirety. That's one of the reasons I'm writing a book on Black Twitter to make sure that that history is there and that it's accurate. And so we use the tools that we have to present these narratives alongside the ones that people are told they sometimes disrupt that that that that th th th th th th th th the narrative the narrative the narrative the narrative the narrative the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their their their their their theirthat we have to present these narratives alongside the ones that people are told.

They sometimes disrupt the narrative, they counter them, they give you a completely different picture or a more complete picture. And that is the way that we get down to that. We also refuse the way that people want to talk about our stories. So one of my personal commitments is to not say CRT. It is critical race theory. It is an actual theory. It applies to how we think about power and economics and race and all of those things working together. I don't take the shortcuts because that's what people do when they're trying to re-spin

the narrative. And I say we spell it out, we tell it how it is, and that is, and that is, and that is, and that is, and th is, and th is th is th is th is tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thi, tho, tho, thin, the the, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, the the the the the the the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the thin, thin, thin, thin, throo, throoooooooooooooooooooooo, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, is, th it how it is, and that is the way that we take back our history and present the truth. So as you write this book on Black Twitter, this would be a great place for us to end with the two of you. What does the future of Black Twitter look like? Because we understand its power, we understand it's worth now. You know, I am very much a web 1.0 aged individual. I came up in the AOL chat rooms and then the Yahoo chat rooms which had the voice feature.

And then there was a little bit of my space. And I skipped over Angel Fire and Black Planet that was sprinkled in there as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what you know. Where were you on in the dorms at college? Oh, no, I was in Gibbs hall. No, I was in the th. sprinkled in there as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what you know about? Where were you on in the dorms at college? Oh, no, I was in Gibbs Hall, but I went to the Coleman library to get on the internet because that dial up in the dorm was atrocious. My roommate was always on the phone, long distance relationship, messing up the internet. Where does it go, you know, thus, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, was, the, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, th.............. I, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, was, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, was, the, was, was, was, was, was, was,, I know for a minute during the shutdown,

there, you know, these introduced, there's the, there's been the introduction of apps like Clubhouse and Twitter spaces where you can have real-time voice conversations and quasi-tet-talk, fireside chats. Sometimes they're ratchet, sometimes they're eloquent and very, you know, helpful conversations. But where do you all see the evolution, you know, Meredith, I'll start with you, you know, as you know, there was rumors that Elon Musk was going by Twitter and now he might not, he may, then it was rumors that Donald Trump might come back to Twitter,

then they were talking about adding a button where you could moderate and switch stuff up. If those things come true, true, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, tho, tho, tho, their, they, they, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, the evolution, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, theymea, theymea, theymea, they, theymea, they, they, they, thes come true, any of those things come true, and black people migrate from the platform, you know, where do we go? What happens next? I mean, what happens next is what has always happened with black people and any sort of technology, where the technology is there will my people be also, right? We are going to be wherever the web goes. We were there in the beginning and we're going to continue to be there. We're going to be in the metaverse. We're already in the metaverse. I think the challenge right now is as

technologies evolve and develop, that we work on making those changes so that we don't extend the same racist practices into those new spaces. The other thing that I think when I get this question about what's next for Black Twitter, is that I remind people that all of the media forums that we had before today, the major ones have not gone away. We still have radio. We still have print. We still have television. We are going to have social media in some way, shape, or form in the future,

whether it's this platform or another one, we're still going to be there. They're going to be the folks who just, you know, I'm probably going to be one of them. Like Twitter is my platform. I don't dig Snapchat. Clubhouse wants too much of my information to use. I'm probably still going to be on Twitter. So black Twitter, regardless of whether Elon Musk goes through with this purchase or Donald Trump comes back or whatever, you can't outdo black people. We're going to be wherever we want to be using the technology the way that we want to use it. Michael, you're always having to reach the people to spread a message as well. How do you see this going in the future? Yeah, so I think, you know, it's hard to predict where technology is going.

But one thing, you know about black people, whether it's music, whether it's poetry, whether it's fighting, whether it's TV, black people are going to find a way to tell our story to each other. And so wherever it goes, like it's probably going to be somewhere in the metaverse or in the digital reality or virtual reality where like, you know, black people might create a we can't come. And it's really like, you know, you got to have one of those tattoos on your lips or, you know, you got to hear how you sound on the phone before you can talk before you can come in. But wherever it is, black people are going to be there, black people are going to lead the way, and then there's going to be some white people on the side trying to get in to the club. And that is the history of media in America, that is the future of media in America in the world. Black people are going to transform it into a thing that helps us connect with each other. There's already something starting to happen in the world of, you know, oculus and meta. I have a VR headset and there's an app, Alt Space VR, where, you know,

there's black mixers and talk shows and roundtables and debates and relationship talks. So I think as that technology becomes cheaper and easier for people to build and design, then we'll probably see more opportunities for black people in those spaces. This has been a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Thank you all both for coming on and going beyond the scenes with me today. Thank you all both for coming on and going beyond the scenes with me today. Thank you. Thanks. Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the I-Heart Radio App or wherever you get your

podcast. Watch the Daily Show, Week Nights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.