#IfTheyGunnedMeDown

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Introduction:

The hashtag #IfTheyGunMeDown or #IfTheyGunnedMeDown originated from the protests surrounding the death of Michael Brown. One of the things that gave rise to this hashtag was the way that the media was portraying pictures of Michael Brown. The people of Ferguson, Missouri were angry about the context and the portrayals of the young man as a thug and looking like a troublemaker. There was an outcry by the people of Ferguson and nationwide because only black men were being portrayed in this way, while a white shooting victim would not have been. Here are some of the photos from the hashtag. The purpose of the hashtag was to call out the bias and sensationalization in how media portrays the victims of police shootings. The hashtag was used to draw attention to the bias and stereotypes and to contrast the regular photos of the poster with the one they claim the media would use to portray them in a negative light. (2)

Examples of the hashtag in use-

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This is all within the context of the media only showing officer Wilson in his uniform and looking like a good guy. Here is a photo from Google that shows Officer Wilson and the picture that was used through various media outlets for days. Officer Wilson looks like her is official and is an upstanding citizen. He doesn’t have a single photo circulating that makes him look less than a good person.

Context:

Michael Brown was a young man, only 18 at the time, when he and a friend were walking in the middle of the street on their way home from a small store called Ferguson Market and Liquor. Michael Brown and his friend were accused of stealing cigarillos from the liquor store. 911 was called and a general description of the suspect was given out and that the two were heading toward the Quick Trip. Two officers came by and asked them to use the sidewalk. Some witness claim that some words were spoken between the boys and the officers. One of the officers yelled “get the f*ck off the sidewalk” or “Get the fu*k out of the street.” The boys replied back that they were almost home and would be off the streets in a minute. At some point after a small scuffle, officer Darren Wilson shot the unarmed Michael Brown. At first Brown was shot in the hand, and Brown turns to walk away from the officer and then Officer Wilson shoots him in the back. Michael Brown’s body laid in the hot summer street uncovered for more than four hours, and there was quite a bit of community backlash for abusing the body. The community claims that a white victim would never have been left in the streets uncovered and in an undignified manner.

Map of route Michael Brown’s movements during the afternoon.(4)

 

One witness seems to think that Brown was on something because he turned around and bum rushed Officer Wilson, but other witnesses’ debate that this happened. Here is a diagram of the Michael Brown autopsy.

 

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On August 10^th, 2014 there was a candlelight vigil and then some rioting broke out. Food and alcoholic beverages were stolen from the busted store windows. Residents of Ferguson protested for days. The Ferguson police and the St. Louis Police were relived of policing duties and the National Guard came in to take over security of the city. 

Key Players:

Michael Brown: Michael Brown was a young man who had recently finished high school and was intending to enroll in a trade school. His name became synonymous with the growing Black Lives Matter Movement. His name also became synonymous with the mantra and hashtag “Hands up don’t shoot” in reference to being unarmed and still being shot by overzealous policing. In interviews with his parents, they saw a change in their son, and he started to talk about the Bible and his new dedication to his faith and wanting to be better. Brown as a teenager had some minor issues and incidents with the law, nothing that would warrant jail time or certainly wouldn’t warrant being shot to death. On August 9^th, Michael Brown was in a convenience store where footage shows him push a store clerk and steal a package of cigars. As he was walking home, he came into contact with Officer Darren Wilson who shot Michael Brown. (6)

Dorian Johnson: This is the person who was with Michael Brown was with when he was gunned down. Johnson’s testimony contradicted that of Officer Wilson. Wilson testified that Officer Wilson was the aggressor. At one point Wilson drove off and then backed up with tires screeching almost hitting the boys. Johnson also testified that officer Wilson tried to open his door and Michael Brown wouldn’t let him open the door and kept trying to close it. Johnson also testified that he was scared and couldn’t calm down the officer or “Big Mike” because Michael Brown was bigger than he was. Johnson also testified that he never saw Brown reaching for Officer Wilson’s gun. At that ppoint both boys turn and run away and that’s when Officer Wilson begins to shoot. When Brown turned around after hearing the shots, he had his hands up and said I don’t have a gun. (7)

Lesley McSpadden: Michael Brown’s mother. She and her husband gave the following statement after the jury acquitted Officer Wilson “We are profoundly disappointed that the killer of our child will not face the consequence of his actions. While we understand that many others share our pain, we ask that you channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change. We need to work together to fix the system that allowed this to happen.” (8) In order to set the example, she ran for the city council in Ferguson, Missouri but did not win the seat.

C.J. Lawrence: He is the originator of the hashtag #IfTheyGunMeDown. He is a “self-described social media activist and also 33 years old.  Lawrence wanted to challenge the horrible representation of black males in the media and wanted to challenge the bias and white privilege that media outlets have implicitly or explicitly. He remembers the media portrayal of the Trayvon Martin case and didn’t see any difference in the current media coverage of Michael Brown. So, he decided to challenge his followers to post two pictures of themselves with the hashtag and ask which picture the media use would. He wanted the media and the rest of the  nation to understand that there is just more than one side to a person.(9)

Main Stream Media: Main Stream Media has always had an issue in how the deaths of black men are covered on tv. In almost every case covering a black shooting victim of a cop, a negative picture was always run in conjunction with the story that covered any aspect of the Michael Brown case.

Darren Wilson: Officer Darren Wilson was a police officer in Ferguson Missouri for six years prior to the shooting of Michael Brown. Prior to joining the Ferguson Police Department, Wilson was an officer in the nearby town of Jennings. This police department had racial tension that was so intense between the black community and the white officers that the police department was disbanded, and every officer was fired. The Ferguson police chief described Wilson as a gentle giant. Officer Wilson did not have any violations or disciplinary actions on his record at the Ferguson Police Department. After the grand jury decided not to indict Officer Wilson on charges related to the shooting, Officer Wilson retired from the police force. (10)

Photos from after the Brown shooting(11)

This photo shows a makeshift memorial if where Michael Brown died.

Photo of Lesley McSpadden (Michael Brown’s mother)

Photos of Protesters

Social Media Presence:

The hashtag #Iftheygunmedown went from a hashtag from one event (though not the first or the last event of a white officer shooting/killing unarmed black men and women) to social commentary about media bias and the assassination of black victims’ characters and the constant threat of police violence. Facing History and Teaching Tolerance has an entire unit on this hashtag, and Time Magazine named this the hashtag of the year. Unfortunately, this hashtag did not stop any of the instances that followed. This was one of the first movements by black people for black people and the media had to take notice (Cedar) (12). The media had no choice but to see their errors head on and make substantive changes. 

The tweet resonated with “Black Twitter”, the collective group of Black Twitter users who are very active in tweeting-

“According to data from the Pew Research Internet Project, 40 percent of African-Americans ages 18-29 use Twitter, compared with 28 percent of whites of the same age.”(13)

In the 3 days following the killing of Michael Brown on August 9^th, the hashtag had been used on Twitter more than 168,000 times. These tweeters defended their actions, combatting the idea that they were just passively messaging on social media: “We might be tweeting from a couch, but we’re also getting up and doing the work that needs to be done.” (14)

Through the awareness that was brought to the issue through this hashtag campaign, changes were made in the media’s portrayal of the victim Michael Brown, and protests sprung up all around the country.

Offline Presence:

The killing of Michael Brown sparked protests in both Ferguson and around the country. The protests in Ferguson eventually turned violent, as according to Mark Berman of the Washington Post, “some protesters began looting businesses in the Ferguson area over several hours, leaving a trail of broken glass and burned out store-fronts in their wake.” (15) The protests erupted anew in November 2014 when Michael Brown’s killer, Officer Wilson, was acquitted by a grand jury and not brought up on any charges. The grand jury, consisting of 9 white and 3 Black members, failed to find probable cause to charge Mr. Wilson. The protests spread across America as news of other unarmed Black males, such as Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Freddie Gay, and others sparked outcry around the country. The #IfTheyGunMeDown hashtag helped spur the Black Lives Matter movement, which also began as a hashtag the year before the death of Michael Brown in 2013. (16)

The death of Michael Brown and the rise of the #IfTheyGunnedMeDown hashtag also led to many National Moment of Silence demonstrations in cities across America in honor of the victims of racially motivated police brutality killings. These demonstrations were organized by activists on both Twitter and Facebook, with the National Moment of Silence 2014 page on Facebook garnering almost 10,000 likes and follows. This space was used to organize local demonstrations in 119 different cities all across America, with different group pages created based on geographic location.

The last post from the National Moment of Silence Facebook group (17)

These early demonstrations were the groundwork for the larger protests organized by Black Lives Matter that would happen in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd 6 years later.

Impact of the Movement:

This movement led to an increased exposure of the inherent bias in media reporting of police brutality and the unlawful killing of unarmed Black Americans. Here is the picture that was used by the media when the Michael Brown story initially broke-

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After the initial tweet of #IfTheyGunnedMeDown by activist C.J. Lawrence on August 10^th, NBC News changed the picture they used on all articles related to the story to one that was of Michael staring into the camera while wearing headphones

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This change came about because of the use of contrasting pictures attached to the hashtag, which showed a “thug” picture with one that was silly, happy, or one which should be cause for celebration, each asking #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, which picture would the media use to portray them in the media? This hashtag was also recently used in conjunction with contrasting the pictures of unarmed black males who were gunned down by police with the pictures the media used of white criminals, such as the insurrectionists from the Capitol Riots, to demonstrate the bias of the media.

Original tweet from C.J. Lawrence (20)

Tweet comparing the depiction of a Capitol riot protester to Michael Brown (21)

In addition to effecting change in the media, there was also an investigation of the Ferguson police department due the unrest that was in part due to this hashtag. This investigation was spearheaded by Attorney General Eric Holder, who admitted when releasing the report that “some of those protesters were right” (22) This investigation discovered that the Ferguson police department functioned as a microcosm of the systemic racism that still pervades much of America, especially in our criminal justice system. The revelations from the report are shocking and led to the firing of Ferguson’s chief of police along with 5 other people within the department. The findings of the report found that Black Americans were disproportionately more likely to be arrested in Ferguson, detailed multiple accounts of unnecessary and unjustifiable police brutality against peaceful Black citizens, and more. The report acknowledges that there is “unlawful bias against and stereotypes about African Americans” in Ferguson’s police force.(23)

Examples of blatant racism that were detailed in the report (highlighting comes from source): (24)

 

While there have been many instances of police killings of innocent Black Americans since 2014, this hashtag helped to lay the groundwork for building the Black Lives Matter organization into what it is today. By exposing the media bias in reporting on the victims of these crimes, #IfTheyGunMeDown helped garner a lot more support from people outside of the Black community. Because of the tireless work of activists and the Black Lives Matter Movement, the United States House of Representatives passed the ‘George Floyd’ Police Reform Bill on March 4^th, 2021, and it will now move on to the Senate. If passed, America can finally begin enacting real change in our broken criminal justice system. (25)

Critiques of the Movement:

 Although there are no direct critiques of this particular hashtag, the purpose of the #IfTheyGunnedMeDown hashtag coincides with that of the #BlackLivesMatter and #Ferguson hashtags. These hashtags and their respective activism campaigns have faced scrutiny and backlash in the forms of the alternate hashtags #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter. These counter-hashtags seek to diminish the claim that racism is still prevalent in America, and in the case of #AllLivesMatter stress that we should not solely focus our attention on the Black community but realize that all Americans are equally important by creating a false equivalence that if you claim that #BlackLivesMatter you are thereby purposefully diminishing all other races. (26)

Social media example from the other hashtags- (27)

Conclusion:

The #IfTheyGunnedMeDown hashtag did the necessary work of visually shedding light on the racism that has been inherent in the media coverage of the shootings of Black Americans by the police for decades. While this hashtag is not in constant use any longer, (The latest tweet making use of this hashtag discusses the Facing History lesson based on the hashtag instead of using the tag as it was originally intended), it played a key role in amassing supporters for the broader Black Lives Matter movement, which is now more active than ever today and seeing real change coming about in our legislature. From its beginning with Michael Brown, to Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and unfortunately hundreds more, this hashtag helped force the media to revisit their handling of the victims and how they are portrayed. It was a demand for dignity, and finally it seems as though the message is starting to get through based on the changes currently being debated in Congress.

Bibliography:

(1) Olson, Scott. “Time Magazine Ferguson Cover.” Time.com, Time Inc, 1 Sept. 2014, api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ferguson-cover.jpg?w=800&quality=85.

(2) "Timeline of Events In Shooting Of Michael Brown In Ferguson". AP NEWS, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/9aa32033692547699a3b61da8fd1fc62.

(3) 2021, https://twitter.com/itsangelafos/status/1282073842853335040. Accessed 5 Mar 2021.

(4) "What Happened When Michael Brown Met Officer Darren Wilson". Cnn.Com, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/08/us/ferguson-brown-timeline/.

(5) "What Happened When Michael Brown Met Officer Darren Wilson". Cnn.Com, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/08/us/ferguson-brown-timeline/.

(6) Eligon, John. "Michael Brown Spent Last Weeks Grappling With Problems And Promise (Published 2014)". Nytimes.Com, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/us/michael-brown-spent-last-weeks-grappling-with-lifes-mysteries.html?_r=0.

(7) Peralta, Ayder. "NPR Cookie Consent And Choices". Npr.Org, 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/26/366827836/ferguson-documents-what-michael-browns-friend-saw.

(8) Hanson, Hilary. "'They're Never Gonna Care': Michael Brown's Mother Speaks Out (VIDEO)". Huffpost UK, 2021, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leslie-mcspadden-michael-brown-mother-speech_n_6218964.

(9) Fulwood III, Sam. "Correcting The Media’S Skewed Perspective - Center For American Progress". Center For American Progress, 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2014/08/13/95647/correcting-the-medias-skewed-perspective/.

(10) Lopez, German. "Who Is Darren Wilson, The Officer Who Shot Michael Brown?". Vox, 2021, https://www.vox.com/2015/5/31/17937866/darren-wilson-ferguson-police-officer-michael-brown.

(11) "32 Powerful Images From Ferguson After The Death Of Michael Brown". Buzzfeednews.Com, 2021, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/powerful-images-from-ferguson-after-the-death-of-michael.

(12) Western Washington University. 2021. #IfTheyGunnedMeDown: A Narrative Analysis of News Media Coverage. [online] Available at: <https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=orwwu> [Accessed 3 March 2021].

(13) Vega, Tanzina. “Shooting Spurs Hashtag Effort on Stereotypes.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 Aug. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/us/if-they-gunned-me-down-protest-on-twitter.html.

(14) Vega, Tanzina. “Shooting Spurs Hashtag Effort on Stereotypes.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 Aug. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/us/if-they-gunned-me-down-protest-on-twitter.html.

(15) Shin, Annys. “Recalling the Protests, Riots after Fatal Police Shooting of Michael Brown.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 3 Aug. 2017,

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/recalling-the-protests-riots-after-fatal-police-shooting-of-michael-brown/2017/08/01/9992f044-5a8d-11e7-a9f6-7c3296387341_story.html.

(16) “What Happened in Ferguson?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2014, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html.

(17) National Moment of Silence 2014.What’s next post. Facebook, 28 Aug. 2014, https://www.facebook.com/NMOS2014. Accessed 4 March 2021.

(18) @NBCNews. “Corrected Link: Unarmed Missouri teen killed by officer after ‘physical confrontation.” Twitter, 10 Aug. 2014 12:50 pm https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/498526729728565250

(19) @NBCNews. “FBI launches investigation into fatal police shooting of unarmed Missouri teen Michael Brown.” Twitter, 11 Aug. 2014 1:07 pm https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/498893379552309248

(20) @CJLawrenceEsq. “Yes let’s do that: Which photo does the media use if the police shot me down? #IfTheyGunnedMeDown.” Twitter, 10 Aug. 2014 1:34 PM. https://twitter.com/CJLawrenceEsq/status/498537843170353152

(21) @MarcusJulienLee. “How Mike Brown was depicted posthumously vs. how Ashli Babbitt was depicted. 1 was fatally shot for stealing a box of swishers. The other raided the Capitol building and disobeyed orders of the Secret Service, which led to her demise. #iftheygunnedmedown.” Twitter, 7 Jan. 2021 5:57 pm. https://twitter.com/MarcusJulienLee/status/1347330182110011392

(22) Mark Berman, Wesley Lowery. “The 12 Key Highlights from the DOJ's Scathing Ferguson Report.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 27 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/03/04/the-12-key-highlights-from-the-dojs-scathing-ferguson-report/.

(23) Ibid

(24) Ibid

(25) Brice, Makini, and Richard Cowan. “U.S. House Passes 'George Floyd' Police Reform Bill, Senate Prospects Unclear.” Reuters, 4 Mar. 2021, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-police/u-s-house-passes-george-floyd-police-reform-bill-senate-prospects-unclear-idUSKCN2AW07N.

(26) Husband, Miracle (2016) "Racial Battle Fatigue and the Black Student Affairs Professional in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter," The Vermont Connection: Vol. 37 , Article 10.

(27) @UhmNicole. “Yes some cops are corrupt, but Tyler was 24 and didn't deserve to be killed for no reason #AllLivesMatter.” Twitter, 28 Dec. 2014, https://twitter.com/UhmNicole/status/549089089048162304/photo/1.