OUTLOUD!

#BlackoutDay is now Seasonal on all social media platforms

When we started #BlackoutDay, we had a vision that it would be a monthly event, which would be the first Friday of every month. We figured that this would be a great way to build moral, especially with all of the news about Black people that hit us daily, especially within the past few years.

As we move forward from our April 3rd event, we found that the frequency caused an unique problem within the Tumblr community. We found the movement to have a big effect on all social media platforms, so to address the uniqueness of Tumblr, we decided to make BlackoutDay a less frequent event on Tumblr, but keep the monthly occurrence on other social media networks.

We rely heavily on word of mouth (reposting in general), so it requires that we spend time promoting this idea. However, this sent a lot of mixed messages. Some people are still are not fully aware of the team behind BlackoutDay and ask us as individuals, which means more work when clearing up misconceptions & fighting rumors. Others asked people who are not part of the official Blackout team, which makes the work twice as hard to accomplish.

Informing people online is very hard and tiring work, even though we have official channels to help lead people into the right direction. The monthly promotion as well as clearing up all misconceptions had exhausted the original team and thus it leads us to this announcement. We decided that it’s time to simplify the message.

Effective immediately, May 1st will be our last official monthly Blackout and we’ll move #TheBlackout as a seasonal event on all social media platforms held on first day of the seasons of the calendar. (March 21, June 21, Sept 21 and Dec 21)

Each BlackoutDay will have a theme according to that season. Tentative themes includes:

June 21st - Summer theme (As well as Juneteenth, Black Music Month, Graduation/Promotion ceremonies)

Sept 21st - Fall Theme (Labor Day/End of Summer celebrations, preparing for Fall)

Dec 21st - Winter Theme (celebrating the Holidays and winter)

Mar 21st - Spring Theme (celebrating Black History, the coming of spring & rebirth and the original BlackoutDay)

Within the next few days, we will make this language part of the official website and we will post this information on the front page if that website.

Does this mean we can only use the tags on these days?

Of course not! You can use the tags ANY time you want. We just want to reserve these dates to officially “Blackout” those days.

Are you no longer observing #BlackoutDay as the first Friday of every month?

Officially, no. We will focus on promoting #TheBlackout / #BlackoutDay on the official days instead. We want to simplify the message across all platforms and therefore, making it easier to promote. We’re not in this for a profit, but we do have limited resources, thus it’s important that we simplify things.

Who are the official members of #BlackoutDay?

T’von Green - expect-the-greatest - He’s the founder and talked about the idea.

Marissa Rei - blkoutqueen - She handles Public Relations, logistics of the events as well as other important information related to #TheBlackout.

V. Matthew King-Yarde, who’s known as nukirk.digi.tal and social commentator of whatwhiteswillneverknow (the blog that he used to promoted the first BlackoutDay). He handles marketing, graphic design of promos and promotions.

These are the three members of #TheBlackout and that helped created the first BlackoutDay.

What about the fundraiser?

Because of this change to the overall idea, we want to update the fundraiser so that it reflects this new information.

The fundraiser expires May 2nd. We will readjust our material to reflect that it’s a seasonal event and try again at a later date. Because some people have hesitations with GoFundMe, we will do another fundraiser using another platform at a later date.

Just so we’re on the same page, please view the video to get answers to general questions such as…

Why we need to brand?

Would giving us trademarks means the idea is no longer “yours”?

How do you know we’ll keep our word?

Why do we need to raise $5K instead of just the trademark and company fees?

There are people using #TheBlackout / #BlackoutDay for events/products and so on. Have you authorize this?

Other than the fundraiser, we have not authorize the use of the hashtags for events and/or products. Know that unless it comes from the official channels or from one on the members of #the Blackout team, it is not official.

Any future plans beyond a “selfie day”?

As a Pro-Black movement, we will talk about other movements and support Black ideals and a sense of community via our website and lend support when we can.

While we do have plans, we can’t act on them without first branding the names. For more information, check out the following links:

nukirk explains why branding is important in his own way.

Explains why it’s important for us to act on trademarking right away.

For now, we’re only announcing the official days and focus on promoting this idea going forward. We will make more announcements about future plans on later dates.

How can I help make future #BlackoutDays better?

We need your help in making sure that the work we helped with so far stays on track. We can’t afford a paid campaign, so we need you to help us. How?

Follow the official channels (mention on the bottom) or check them out every once in a while.

theblackoutofficial is the official blog of this movement/event. We are working to make this blog part of the official website flow.

Sign up for the mailing list (Check the right hand sidebar. It’s totally optional, but we will only use this list to talk about #TheBlackout organization or to promote upcoming #BlackoutDay events. Nothing else.)

Reblog this post (or spread the link http://tremix.us/seasonalblackout)

If you have ANY questions, please contact us directly (you can use the ask on the tumblr or email on our website). We will be happy to entertain them!

Thank you for your time.

-The Blackout Team (blkoutqueen, expect-the-greatest, nukirk)

Official Site - http://www.theblackout.org

Tumblr - http://tumblr.theblackout.org

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/theblackout2015

Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/blackout.feed

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/HashtagBlackOutDay

There is a difference between saying police are racists and saying POLICING is racist. Saying police are racists suggests that some cops are good and some are bad, and therefore we simply need to replace the bad (racist) cops with “good” (not racist) ones. Structurally, since black, brown, and indigenous people cannot wield white supremacy in a white supremacist system, the logic follows that not racist (“good”) cops would be fellow people of color. Yet the fact remains that they do in fact kill other persons of color, and in Freddie Gray’s case, specifically a black person.

So when people say “Cops are racists” we run into the question of whether or not black, brown, and indigenous cops are racists too when they are participants in PoC extrajudicial killings. The answer is clearly no, but we do have to ask another question: If and when PoC officers kill another person of color, are they replicating and reinforcing a policing system predicated on white supremacy? The answer to that question is yes. A critique of police terror cannot be isolated to its individual participants, but must be analyzed in the scope of the functions they carry out on behalf of the institution they serve as a whole.