The Power of Black Twitter

Summary

All Of It (WNYC) — "The Power of Black Twitter"

Date: August 6, 2024
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Jason Parham, Senior Writer at Wired and Producer of "Black Twitter: A People’s History" (Hulu)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the history, influence, and cultural significance of Black Twitter—a vibrant, dynamic community on the platform once known as Twitter. Host Alison Stewart interviews Jason Parham, whose Wired article "A People's History of Black Twitter" was adapted into the Hulu docu-series "Black Twitter: A People’s History." Together, they explore Black Twitter’s origins, key moments, its power to shape discourse, and the evolving challenges posed by platform changes and the rise of new social media.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Origins & Early Days of Black Twitter

• Jason’s Introduction to Twitter:
  • Jason began using Twitter around 2008 during grad school, seeking community and connection during the "honeymoon years" of Obama.
    • "Millennials didn’t have jobs coming out of the recession, but we were looking for connection and Twitter was the place to do that for us." [03:16]
• Foundational Viral Moments:
  • The viral hashtag “#YouKnowYoureBlackWhen” in September 2009, started by Ashley Weatherspoon, marked a pivotal moment. Nearly 2% of all Twitter traffic centered on it, as Black users riffed and played on culturally specific experiences.
    • "Black people sort of riffing on, you know, you're black when... which I think was innate to black users." [04:08]
• Atmosphere and Identity Formation:
  • The early years were described as the "Wild, Wild West Days," a time when users experimented with identity, found community, and engaged in genuine conversation—often likened to the feeling of being on a college campus quad.
    • "Twitter was very immediate but also intimate... People were just showing up as their true selves in those first early years." [05:29]

2. Three Eras of Black Twitter (per Jason’s Article and Series)

• Coming Together (2008–2012):
  • Formation of community, organic engagement, hashtags like "Twitter After Dark."
• Rising Up (2012–2016):
  • Period of increased political and social activism, catalyzed by Trayvon Martin’s killing and the rise of Black Lives Matter.
    • "This was the sort of transformative moment of Black Twitter... You have an organizer like Janetta LZ, who became a very active voice within the Black Lives Matter movement, posting to her timeline because she felt people should know about these tragedies." [13:52]
• Getting Through (2016 onward):
  • Era marked by resistance, resilience, and adaptation under the Trump presidency and significant social upheavals.

3. Black Twitter and Popular Culture

• Influence on Mainstream Media and Pop Culture:
  • Sparked movements (e.g., #OscarsSoWhite) and cultural moments, influenced television phenomena like "Scandal," where the cast and audience engaged in real-time.
    • "I think it was the idea of this collective watch party... It was one of those activating moments early on that is really defining in a lot of ways to what it became." [08:13]
• Celebrity Rise Through Twitter:
  • Platform for the emergence or amplification of voices like W. Kamau Bell, Roxane Gay, Jemele Hill, Raquel Willis, who gained wider recognition through authentic engagement.

4. Political Activism & Social Change

• Critical Role in Social Movements:
  • Black Twitter’s mobilization around events like Trayvon Martin’s death, Ferguson, and the George Floyd protests changed how the world learned about and discussed these incidents.
    • "Black Twitter is really transformative in changing how we talk about sort of tragedy online and making sure that we can't look away to the issues that matter to us." [14:29]
• #OscarsSoWhite:
  • Created by April Reign, the hashtag pushed the Oscars toward diversity and greater inclusion, inspiring institutional changes.
    • "The Academy... committed to doubling the number of people of color and doubling the number of women within their membership ranks by 2020." [15:28]
    • "I am energized by the fact that we have movies like 'Till,' 'Nope,' and 'Black Panther'..." [16:25]
• Election Season & Kamala Harris:
  • During the 2024 election, Black Twitter (now on 'X') responded with robust, sometimes divided commentary on Kamala Harris’s historic candidacy.
    • "There's a real groundswell and sort of online sort of cheer for her among a lot of Black users... But there are also Black users online saying, hey, I don't know if this is still the right choice for us." [17:55]

5. Community Even as the Platform Changes

• Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter (“X”) and Its Impact:
  • Initially, the response was humor (memes about funerals for Twitter), but as staff were laid off—including much of the Black staff and safety teams—concerns about hate speech and abuse increased.
    • "The first initial reaction was let's make a joke out of it... There were a lot of funeral memes. But then it got much more serious..." [10:58]
    • "A lot of the consequence of that is now you see a lot more abuse on the platform... use of the N word was increasing in the days that he followed taking over." [19:28]
• Resilience and Reluctance to Leave:
  • Despite issues, many Black users have been reluctant to fully abandon the community they've built.

6. Challenges: Appropriation & Abuse

• Appropriation of Black Culture and Slang:
  • Black culture is often adopted and repurposed out of context, especially as it becomes more visible.
    • "When blackness is in public view, it's being ripped out of its context. It's taken in ways that we, you know, we no longer have control of." [20:37]
• Rise of Other Platforms (e.g., TikTok):
  • TikTok hasn't replaced Black Twitter’s role, but reflects a new era.
    • "I just think we're in a new era of social media... TikTok is... the future of social media." [21:21]

7. Documenting Black Twitter’s History

• Intent Behind Telling This Story:
  • Jason’s motivation was to preserve Black Twitter’s place in history, especially as contemporary events threaten to erase Black narratives.
    • "We're living in a really dangerous time... I wanted to document this space and think this was an important document of our history... It deserves its place in the history books." [23:02–23:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Is it black.twitter.com? Is there a special tweet I send which opens a portal for us muggles to get into the special club?" — Clip from docuseries [01:00]
• "It kind of reminded me a lot of what being on the quad in college felt like." — Jason Parham [05:09]
• "Black Twitter was perfect for the moment that we were in, you know, the 2010s." — Jason Parham [21:21]
• "It's like being in the barber shop. It's like being in all these beautifully complex and rich, layered black spaces. I mean, I think Black Twitter in a lot of ways reflects those places." — Jason Parham [20:28]
• "Black people— not a monolith. How does black Twitter allow us to better understand different perspectives within the black community?... By letting us be who we are online, by not coming with judgment, but by showing up as your true self." — Alison Stewart & Jason Parham [22:54–23:02]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:09] Jason’s first experience with Twitter
• [04:32] Viral hashtags & origins of Black Twitter
• [05:09] Description of Black Twitter’s early community
• [07:49] "Scandal" and Black Twitter as a watch party
• [10:35] Frederick (Brooklyn caller) asks about the Elon Musk takeover
• [12:29] Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, and the activist turn
• [15:28] Creation and impact of #OscarsSoWhite
• [17:55] Black Twitter’s reactions to Kamala Harris’s political rise
• [19:28] The positives and negatives of Black Twitter's visibility
• [20:37] Appropriation and co-opting Black culture online
• [21:21] Rise of TikTok and shifting cultural attention
• [22:02] Adapting the Wired article into a Hulu docuseries
• [23:02] On the historical importance of chronicling Black Twitter

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Conclusion

This episode paints a detailed, nuanced picture of Black Twitter: how it emerged as an influential community, harnessed its voice for activism and humor, shaped culture online and offline, and now faces new challenges with evolving technology and corporate stewardship. Jason Parham and Alison Stewart underscore the importance of keeping such stories alive—as Black Twitter is both a history and a living, adapting entity.

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For further exploration:

• Black Twitter: A People’s History — Hulu Series
• Jason Parham’s 2021 Wired article, "A People’s History of Black Twitter"

Transcript

[A]

Hanaday presents in the red corner, the undisputed undefeated weed whacker guy, champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere. And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength hataday eye drops that work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy allergy eyes. And the winner by knockout is Patternay. Patternay. Bring it on.

[B]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. A docu series shows the origins of Black Twitter, a vibrant and influential community on the social media app. Let's listen to a clip from this series. This is hip hop journalist Brandon Jinx Johnson, writer and comedian Baratunde Thurston and author and journalist Jamil Hill sharing the first public thoughts of on Black Twitter.

[A]

There was a tweet at one point where they were like, where is Black Twitter? Like, is it like, they thought it was like a secret URL? We had different logins and like, or is it a location? Is it black.twitter.com like, is there a special tweet I send which opens a portal for us muggles to get into the special club? There's not an extra tab or there's not an email that you get where you want to sign up. It's just sort of there. And what you discover very quickly within the world of black Twitter is that all of these combined regions, mentalities, political views, everything is sandwiched into one place.

[B]

Using real life testimonies and viral moments. The series explores how black users reshaped how we interact and use the social media app, but also how users played a crucial role in amplifying social movements like BlackLivesMatter, influencing pop culture debates and highlighting voices that often go unheard. But will that change now? It is officially called and it's owned by a man with his own set of opinions. The series is titled Black A People's History. It is on Hulu. Joining us is Jason Parham. He's the senior writer at Wired, the creative mind behind Black A people's history. Jason's 2021 article, a people's History of Black Twitter laid the foundation for the docu series the Origins and the Impact of Black Twitter. Hi, Jason.

[A]

Hi. How are you doing?

[B]

I'm doing well. All right, listeners, especially black listeners, what are your favorite moments on Black Twitter? When did you discover it? What do you think of X taking over? Will it still valuable considering one of the candidates for president is black? Give us a call or text us 212-433-9692. She is black, by the way. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. You can also reach out on social media, all of it, wnyc. Now, if you're not black, have you found a community on social media such as Twitter and X? Are you part of a one that shares experience? Mom Twitter, feminist Twitter? How do you think the platform has changed since Elon Musk purchased it and renamed it X212-433-969? Okay. Do you remember the first time you used Twitter, Jason?

[A]

Yeah, I was in grad school at the time. This was maybe around 2008. I was very, very early on the platform. You know, this is the Obama, the sort of honeymoon years of the Obama years. And I was, you know, looking for connection online. You know, as I like to say, millennials didn't have jobs coming out of the recession, but we were looking for connection and Twitter was the place to do that for us.

[B]

When you think about the origin story of black Twitter, what is it? How do you describe how it started?

[A]

So I was able to track it back. I would say it began around 2009. In September 2009, Ashley Weatherspoon, a young sort of media executive, was looking to create marketing strategy for one of her clients. And they were playing with different hashtags online. And one of the ones that went instantly viral was, you know, your black win. And this is early before really the platform, what we know the platform as it is today. But it went instantly viral, you know, overnight, I think it was. Almost 2% of all Twitter traffic in September 2009 revolved around this hashtag. And black people sort of riffing on, you know, you're black when it's sort of like playing the dozens or riffing on top of a joke, which I think was innate to sort of black users.

[B]

So you know you're black when your mom tells you to fix your face. That kind of thing.

[A]

Something like that, yes.

[B]

Let's talk about the three eras of black Twitter that you outlined in the article. The first era, from 2008 to 2012 is coming together. The second era from 2012 to 2016 is rising up, which began after the death of Trayvon Martin. And then you describe getting through, which began in 2016, right around the Trump presidency. Let's talk about the first era. One interview in the docu series described this as the Wild, Wild West Days. Who was using it? Was it being used for anything outside of entertainment?

[A]

Oh, completely. I mean, I think one of the first original hashtags, Twitter After Dark, was not Even surrounded, you know, it wasn't even focused on jokes or entertainment. It was users coming onto the platform past the 11:00pm hour, you know, being a little more liberated, as you might say, with their online selves. But the early days are really, it kind of reminded me a lot of what being on the quad in college felt like. I think people were looking for community. You know, Twitter was this space. You had, you had Facebook, you had a few other sort of rising social media platforms. But Twitter was very immediate but also intimate. And so this, these early years, people were really looking for connection, trying out their identities online. And really it wasn't, I think, what it's turned into now where people are sort of trying to get a joke or trying to perform in a certain way. People were just showing up as their true selves in those first early years. I would, I would chart from maybe 0809 to 2013. 14.

[B]

My guest is Jason Parham. He's a writer for senior writer for Wired. He's also the producer, one of the producers on black Twitter. A people's history. It's now on Hulu listeners, especially black listeners. What are your favorite moments on black Twitter? When did you discover it? What do you think of x taking over? 2124-3396-9221-2433-WNYC. And if you're not black, maybe you're part of another group. Moms for Twitter, feminists for Twitter. You can call us too. 2124-3396-9221-2433. How does Twitter help so you stay informed on current events. Want to know that too? 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. Certainly people really made their names on Twitter. W. Kamau Bell, Roxane Gay, Jemele Hill, Raquel Willis. These people who had a following already, but then they really, really got invested on Twitter. What did it take to make it on black Twitter?

[A]

I mean, I don't know if it took anything to make it. I think these were people who were on the platform from the very early days and were really just looking for conversation and community. And I think people who also went sort of there were really crucial moments happening in the culture, whether it was Black Lives Matter, whether it was Oscar so White, whether it was Ferguson, excuse me, whether it was the killing of George Floyd. You had them sort of showing up and speaking out for, you know, putting, you know, shedding light, truth to justice in different ways. And I think people just really Standing on, as we say, standing on business and really just being their authentic selves online. And people gravitate towards that. People can see that people want to connect with people like that.

[B]

One of my first recollections about Twitter sort of reaching the more mainstream was Scandal. You know, the TV show the D.C. fixer, and it was a Shondaland production, and she and the cast actively use Twitter to communicate with the viewers. You watch the tv, you look at your screen. You watch the tv, you look at your screen. What was it about Scandal that made it a show for black Twitter?

[A]

I think it was the idea of this collective watch party. We were all together coming around this show that nobody really knew anything about. And also, remember, this was the first time a black woman had really been in prime time in decades, right? And so Shonda was not only making history, but we were wanting to support her making history. And so it really started off with this small group of users, and then over time, it just bubbled into, like, everybody coming together for Scandal every week, getting their wine with their popcorn. So it really was a movement in a way. It was one of those activating moments early on in that sort of first era of Twitter that is really defining in a lot of ways to what it became.

[B]

Honestly, how much did President Barack Obama influence black Twitter?

[A]

I think. I don't. I think it was the spirit of the Obama years, the mood of the Obama years. People were coasting on, you know, the sort of energy of hope and promise and that America could be better than what it was. Again, this was the first black president. And so people were just showing up online in ways we hadn't seen before. And I think they were really riding that energy on Twitter and using it in new ways.

[B]

You referenced viral moments, such as the heated 2014 Christmas Day exchange between a user named NaughtyDrippin and my tweets realaf over Kobe Bryant's performance in a game against the Phoenix sun, which led to the phrase, meet me in Temecula. What led to that argument escalating? And then how did it become a source of entertainment for everybody watching?

[A]

This was. I mean, this is. I think aside from black Twitter, NBA Twitter might be one of the more iconic. One of the more iconic communities online. You know, as. As it happens, always, as we see all the time now on Twitter, two dudes were arguing over the legitimacy of Kobe Bryant. One dude gets so heated where he says, you know, meet me in Temecula. One dude decides to leave his house on Christmas Day and drive to Temecula. To meet this guy, to argue over Kobe Bryant. Of course it doesn't happen, but there's photos, a diss song comes out of it. But it's one of these viral moments early on that feels really organic to the platform and the energy and the excitement people and the passion people had around what was happening in culture.

[B]

Let's take a call. Frederick calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Frederick, thanks for calling, all of it.

[A]

You're welcome.

[B]

What do you want to know?

[A]

Yeah, I want to know how did black Twitter respond when Elon Musk, who doesn't try to hide his white nationalism, took over the platform?

[B]

Thank you for calling in. I was going to ask that down the road, but we'll get to it right now. What are you thinking as someone who spent so much time on the subject?

[A]

Yeah, the sort of first initial reaction was let's make a joke out of it. Let's, you know, let's mourn Twitter this, you know, RIP There were a lot of funeral memes. There were a lot of people saying, when is the repass. When is, you know, when are the funeral services? So I think the first reaction was just like, this guy is taking over. Let's make a joke about it. But then it got much more serious once we started to see him implement sort of changes within Twitter, within the Twitter internally, when he was letting go of almost all of its staff, black staff, I think he also let go of its trust and safety team. And so people started to worry, what was the future of Twitter, what would happen now in this next era of social media with Elon Musk, somebody who is as unpredictable as they come. And so people have been hesitant to, you know, side with him. But I think black users, because they put so much time in Twitter, because they built black Twitter into what it is, they're also reluctant to let it go. So I think while there was a small exodus of users, there have been sort of a community of users who have stayed and, you know, as I said, standing on business as always.

[B]

Yeah. Your second part of describing black Twitter is rising up, becoming a political activist space in the series. In episode two, Twitter's former global director of culture and community, Goddess river talks about hearing about the murder of a 15 year old boy, Trayvon Martin, in a case that became a national story. Let's listen to this clip.

[A]

It looked like everything was going right for black Twitter. We were clowning, we were laughing. We had reprieve all at our fingertips. And maybe, just maybe, power was also in reach. Major developments tonight in the case of A neighborhood watch captain in Florida who shot and killed an unarmed 17 year old. And then tragedy strikes. We learned the hard way that despite power being up for grabs, the powers that be weren't ready to relinquish it.

[B]

I used to listen to the Michael Baisden show and he kept having this.

[A]

Woman on, a black woman. And he was talking about, this woman is so upset her son has been killed and she cannot get them to.

[B]

Arrest the man who killed her son.

[A]

I don't know the reason why my son was suspicious in the first place. My son had Arizona iced tea, $22 and a bag of Skittles candy. We are the victims, but the police has not reached out to us. We haven't heard anything. And I'm thinking, what you mean he killed somebody? This poor boy was killed in Florida and they not even arresting the man who, you know, did this to him. And I just couldn't understand it. Why isn't CNN talking about this? Why isn't MSNBC talking about this? But then it started in some ways to catch fire on black Twitter.

[B]

Explain Black Twitter's role in the Trayvon Martin case.

[A]

Yeah. So talking about the real sort of grassroots power of black Twitter, this was the sort of transformative moment of black Twitter. When I say black Twitter is coming of age, they're sort of, you're growing from sort of a teenager into adulthood. So there was a lot of mobilization among black users saying, you know, this black kid was killed down in Ferguson. You also had I eyewitness accounts from a lot of the neighbors and people down on Canfield Drive taking photos and posting them to the timeline. You have an organizer like Janetta LZ who was in St. Louis who became a very sort of active voice within the Black Lives Matter movement because she was down in Ferguson posting to her timeline because she felt people should know about these tragedies that were going on. This young black man was killed in the street and left there to die. And so black Twitter is really transformative in changing how we talk about sort of tragedy online and making sure that we can't look away to the issues that matter to us.

[B]

My guest, Jason Parnham. We're talking about black Twitter, a people's history. It's available on Hulu now. Listeners, especially black listeners. What are your favorite moments on black Twitter? What has it meant to you? 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. You can call or text us or you can reach out on social media of it. WNYC in A lot of ways, black Twitter has had a ripple effect across industries, including entertainment. For example, creative consultant April Rain created Oscars so White, which brought the attention to the lack of diversity within the nominations of the Academy Awards. Let's take a listen to a clip from Black Twitter.

[A]

When I think about April Rand's Oscars so White, that is all about not just calling out the blaring whiteness of Hollywood and who gets supported and who doesn't, but it's also about holding those institutions accountable. In the aftermath of me tweeting Oscars so white in 2015 and then it really taking off in 2016, the Academy, Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the folks who run the Oscars, committed to doubling the number of people of color and doubling the number of women within their membership ranks by 2020.

[B]

I am.

[A]

Buoyed by the fact that people who were not previously in the Academy are now members. Hollywood getting red carpet ready for what.

[B]

Organizers say is a more diverse and inclusive Academy Awards.

[A]

I am energized by the fact that we have movies like Till and Nope and Black Panther and so many others that expeak to facets of the black experience in addition to films, you know, like Minari and Parasite and everything everywhere all at once that speak to the experiences of other cultures as well.

[B]

We are, what, eight years away from that when that first happened. Do you think her, the role that she hoped for, that she felt so good about, has continued to exist?

[A]

I think so. I think it calls for a reckoning in Hollywood in a way that we hadn't seen before it as people sort of question their ideals and their values and what they sort of held dear within sort of the cinema space. And I think a lot of people, you know, we've seen new members, you know, being granted access into the Academy. I think we've seen the sort of look of movies and Hollywood change within these last years. I don't think it is necessarily sort of a utopian space yet. You know, I don't think Hollywood has quite gotten it right yet, but I think it is moving in the right direction for sure.

[B]

We've got this election season ramping up. We're witnessing memes and commentary on Full Force on X, formerly Twitter, because we have a black female presidential nominee. How are you seeing black users, Twitter, black X users, whatever you want to call them now reacting to this moment around Kamala Harris?

[A]

Yeah, I think there's a real groundswell and sort of online sort of cheer for her among a lot of black users. I think, you know, people Were sort of discontent with Biden and Trump and thinking, you know, we were going to get a lot of the same old thing we got before. But I think now with Kamala and today we announced, you know, she announced Governor Tim Walls of Minnesota as her running man. I think people are really excited for this, maybe this new look of the Democratic Party. But there also are black users online saying, hey, I don't know if this is still the right choice for us. I don't know if the Democratic Party is going to get it right. You know, this is the lesser of two evils. So I think you're seeing this Rob conversation, as we always do, split along black users on the platform. That really makes black Twitter the space that it is.

[B]

Historically, though, how has black Twitter responded to major political moments like the elections?

[A]

I mean, they show up when they have to show up, right? It is sort of the premier space online that I would say among the 2010s where people were really activating and mobilizing, galvanizing for change. You have Black Lives Matter. You have Oscars so white. You have George Floyd. You have all these sort of major moments in US History where black Twitter was the megaphone for the people.

[B]

One person you interviewed in your Wire article said black Twitter made a real time encyclopedia, and it also created a visibility on black culture that people never had before. This can be positive and this can be negative. What's a positive? What's a negative?

[A]

Yeah, I think the negative is you just don't realize all the eyes that are gonna be on you and all the sort of abuse that comes from that. So earlier when I mentioned how Elon Musk had taken over and he fired his trust and safety team, a lot of sort of the consequence of that is now you see a lot more abuse on the platform. You see a lot of. A lot more use of. You know, there was a, I think a study done where the. The use of the N word was, was. Was increasing in, in the days that he followed taking over Twitter. And so I think you. He permits this, this space of, of hate and fear and fear mongering on the platform in a way that the previous regime didn't. And I think a black. A lot of black users weren't necessarily used to that. But the good of black Twitter is always the good. We're there for each other. We're, you know, we have each other's backs when we need to. It really is a collective space to grieve, to come together, to joke. You know, I describe it in the Original piece as kind of like a soul train line and judge and jury. It's like being in the barber shop. It's like being in all these sort of like beautifully complex and rich, layered black spaces. I mean, I think Black Twitter in a lot of ways reflects those places.

[B]

Did you see or did you witness appropriation or co opting of black culture? Did that happen on Twitter?

[A]

I mean, yeah, the slang is always. I mean, this is sort of what it means to be black in America, right? When blackness is in public view, it's being ripped and being ripped out of its context. It's taken in ways that we, you know, we no longer have control of. And I think we're seeing the sort of effects of this almost, you know, detrimentally now with sort of the rise of AI and people altering images. We're seeing this a lot on TikTok, but I think a lot of it too started on black Twitter for sure. And people sort of taking the users for granted in a way that we hadn't seen before.

[B]

It's interesting that you should mention TikTok. Has TikTok taken away some of the shine of black Twitter? Black X?

[A]

No, no, I don't think it's taken away the shine. I just think we're in a new era of social media and I think, you know, Black Twitter was perfect for the moment that we were in, you know, the 2010s. And I think going forward, TikTok is, will reflect more of the future of social media and what we're looking for and how it will appear online.

[B]

We're talking to Jason Parnham, Wired writer senior, excuse me, Wired senior writer and producer. We're talking about Black Twitter, a people's history. It's a docu series, it's available on Hulu now. So I have to ask you, how did, how did they get an article to be a three part series? What parts of the story did you make sure you wanted to tell on screen?

[A]

Yes, I mean, it was an amazing process working with Princess Penny coming over from Insecure. Insecure was such an institution for young people like me watching it growing up. And so to work with him now in his first unscripted piece in the doc space was transformational for me. But the idea was to just adapt the story as it was. We had the three arcs in the original oral history and we decided that this would be a great framing for the docu series. And then working with Disney and Onyx over, you know, the Onyx Collective team over at Disney, who have done a lot of Great, you know, document. They did Summer of Soul. They've done a lot of other great work. And so working with them was also a dream come true for us as well. And so it was, as I heard throughout the process, it was kind of a. Not usual. It was. Everything was kind of just easy for us in a lot of ways. And so it was a really fun process.

[B]

Yeah, you know, black people, not a monolith. How does black Twitter allow us to better understand different perspectives within the black community?

[A]

By letting us be who we are online, by not, you know, coming with judgment, but by showing up as your true self. I think black Twitter is the hope for me, when I originally set out to document this was, you know, we were in a. We're living in a really dangerous time. You know, black histories are being taken out of college campuses. We're being told that our identities don't matter. Women don't have the right to their own bodies or to, you know, there's a rising transphobia. And so I wanted to document this space and think this was an important document of our history. And this was ours and we created it, and it needs to have validity in that way for us. If you have. It deserves its place in the history books. Yeah.

[B]

So continue. I'm sorry, what you say?

[A]

I was saying it deserves its place in the history books. And that was sort of really important for me to get that down on paper.

[B]

Jason Parnham, he wrote the original story that the series is based on, Black A People's History. It's available on Hulu now. Hey, Jason, thank you so much for walking us through your story and through the series.

[A]

Thank you so much, Alison.

[B]

I'm Ira Plato, host of Science Friday.

[A]

For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else.

[B]

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[A]

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