Blackout Tuesday is meant to interrupt daily life in order to raise awareness for racist police brutality and the protests catalyzed by the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. The day was organized by Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, current and former Atlantic Records workers, in order to reflect on the incalculable debt the music industry owes to black artists, and was promoted through the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused.
Today, though, social media has been flooded with people marking Blackout Tuesday with “blacked out” posts tagged with the #BlackLivesMatter or #BLM hashtags, which has resulted in sites like Instagram being flooded with blank squares instead of the important organizational information and fundraising resources that hashtag is meant to mark.
Since this morning, people have been trying to stop this by sending messages informing everyone that marking these posts with #BlackLivesMatter or #BLM is, in short, extremely counterproductive.