![]() ![]() The film interviews several of the organizers behind Rock Against Racism (RAR), a network of activists, promoters and musicians who took a stand against the National Front - a far-right political group with deeply fascist views - using their collective love of punk and its use of underground media. The lack of accessibility to social media, or even cell phones, is mentioned several times in White Riot, director Rubika Shah's documentary detailing a moment in the history of punk when communities came together to actively work towards dismantling prevalent racist groups in the UK during the mid-late 1970s. ![]() ![]() A Twitter user summarized very well what many critics of the initiative had to say about the black squares - during a time like this, if your post is saying nothing to take a stand against Black racism, then why even post at all? Blackout Tuesday became a viral statement amongst most of the music industry around the world, and by watching prominent musicians participate, it ended up spreading throughout the feeds of allies as a whole, until June 2 had become a bit of a disaster on social media. The initiative was heavily criticized by activists for its participants' failure to provide a meaningful message or even clarity on their actions which, for most, consisted of posting a black square to their Instagram feed. A lot has been said about Blackout Tuesday - an initiative that stemmed from Atlantic Records' marketing team's similar #TheShowMustBePaused campaign, and whose intentions were to provide the music industry, from streaming platforms to record labels to popular musicians, with an intentional moment to consider the industry's complicity in anti-Black racism. ![]()
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