How tweeting while black became controversial

By Imani J. Walker
Black culture is interesting. Not only to those who identify themselves as black but those who are on the outside looking in. Consider the fact that elements of black culture not only have been successfully integrated into other cultures seamlessly with nary an influence of an advertising campaign or a public relations executive. Case-in-point: whether you agree with the merit of Antoine Dodson's popularity as evidence of coonery or 15 minutes of fame, the refrain of "Hide yo kids, Hide yo wife" is to 2010 what "Tardy For The Party" was for 2009 or "Yes We Can" was to 2008.

That being said, it was with much interest that I and likely several of you viewed Slate's article "How black people use Twitter" last week. Upon first read, I have to admit that I really wasn't offended by anything that the author Farhad Manjoo had written. After being a writer on the Internets for the past three years, I had long accepted that most people who comment on facets of blackness are often not black themselves. It was for this reason that I didn't even flinch when Manjoo described himself as a "non-white person" in what can only be described as an attempt to identify with African-Americans yet be an exception towards the audience of those non-black persons for whom "Late Night Black Twitter" is an obsession.

Did I pause when he described Black Twitters' prevalent use of "blacktags" instead of hashtags? A bit. Did I cringe when I saw Slate's depiction of "Black Twitter," a brown bird in a nondescript baseball cap in what I can only assume was this bird's frantic texting to the rest of his tweeps on Twitter late at night? Not really. Again, I'm used to this kind of slap-in-the-face depiction of black people. Did it interfere with my wanting to finish the article? No.

What occurred the next day, however, was something that only the viral gods of the internet could have only dreamed of. Initiated by Inny Vinny on her fashion and culture-oriented website, she offered several depictions of the offensive brown Twitter bird to those who might want to change their Twitter avatars to show awareness of Manjoo's paltry, insufficient claim that black folks who use Twitter are all the of the same mind, individual preferences be damned.


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