(http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=LL&Date=20140311&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=140319874&Ref=AR&Profile=1178&MaxW=198&border=0)
QuoteWASHINGTON — The hashtag gave it away. When a Florida jury convicted Michael Dunn of attempted murder, but not actual murder, in the shooting death of black teenager Jordan Davis, the hashtag #dangerousblackkids popped up on Twitter. Users posted photos of black babies and toddlers, spoofing the fear that Dunn testified he felt before opening fire on a car full of teens at a convenience store.
That hashtag was the calling card of Black Twitter, a small corner of the social media giant where an unabashedly black spin on life gets served up in 140-character installments.
Black Twitter holds court on pretty much everything from President Barack Obama to the latest TV reality show antics. But Black Twitter can also turn activist quickly. When it does, things happen — like the cancellation of a book deal for a juror in the George Zimmerman trial, or the demise of Zimmerman's subsequent attempt to star at celebrity boxing.
full article: http://www.theledger.com/article/20140311/NEWS/140319874/1178?Title=Black-Twitter-Growing-Into-Online-Force
Cool. I just noticed a close friend from college is quoted in this story:
QuoteMeredith Clark, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who is writing her dissertation on Black Twitter, likened it to Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper in the United States. On that publication's first front page in 1827, it declared: "We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us."