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#BBCtrending: "Alive while black"; tales of racism shared online

  • Published
    5 December 2014
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A protester in New YorkImage source, Yana Paskova / Getty Images
ByBBC Trending
What's popular and why

#AliveWhileBlack is one of the latest hashtags to emerge from US protests over the case of Eric Garner, a black man who died after being put in a chokehold by a white police officer.

Earlier BBC Trending brought you the debate over the hashtag #CrimingWhileWhite - white Americans were using the tag to sharing their stories of unpunished criminal activity, while other twitter users called it patronising and counterproductive.

Now African-Americans are using #AliveWhileBlack, external to tell stories of alleged racial discrimination and profiling at the hands of the police.

"Neighbor called the police to my home. They arrived & handcuffed me before realizing it was me that needed help #AliveWhileBlack," tweeted a teacher in Washington state, external.

‏Ruby Lathon (@RubyL) tweeted, external: "#alivewhileblack SUV full of women leaving bachelorette party. Cops pull us over w/4 guns drawn-we 'fit the profile' of 2 male robbers."

The tag appears to have been started by African-American writer and activist Jamilah Lemieux, external.

"Got raped+robbed. Police took forever to interview me, mentioned that women sometimes lie to hide 'gambling, overspending'," she tweeted, external.

As of posting, the tag had been included in more than 80,000 tweets.

Update by Mike Wendling, external

h/t Jim Todd

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, external

All our stories are at bbc.com/trending

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