A chorus of cheers and boos erupted from my Digital Media Literacy class while I sat agape in disbelief. What caused the outburst? The announcement of the winning team in a class debate. Reality settled in quickly. For the winners, the results meant a free pizza party and a self-proclaimed victory against white supremacy. For my team, “the losers,” the results meant much more. Our efforts to defend the First Amendment failed in a unanimous vote from student judges that denied protesters the right to peaceably assemble. Leaving class that day, I faced the added task of a 1,000-word blog post as a member of the losing team, ridicule on social media from victorious classmates, and continued reflection on what was really lost in that debate. Even though the activity had come to a close, I was left to deliberate how and why the judges sided against the First Amendment.
If I do not complete this submission, I will receive a zero even though I actively participated in the class activity. I brainstormed topics, researched information, prepared points with my teammates, and spoke in the debate just as members of the opposite team did. My grade for the activity, the midterm, and the course can now be affected by this required assignment even though my team defended our position according to the First Amendment’s principles–the position that was determined by the flip of a coin and judged by fellow classmates.
As noted in the lecture slides, the First Amendment is “a statement that limits the government’s ability to restrict the rights of individuals.” The class debate case was in regard to city officials denying Unite the Right members the right to assemble in an organized rally one year after the Charlottesville rally. In addition to freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the right to petition, American citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. My team worked from this point of view, arguing to defend the constitutionality of the First Amendment.
While preparing our argument in the thirty minutes before the debate, I referred back to the lecture slide “If we didn’t have the First Amendment.” Points on this slide include:
- “Individuals could be punished for expressing unpopular ideas.”
- “Protesters could be silenced.”
- “Citizens could be prevented from gathering together to work for or against social change.”
Although I strongly disagree with the Unite the Right organization’s views, I recognized that denying their right to protest can lead to the dismantling of all Americans’ First Amendment rights. In the 1950s and 1960s, Civil Rights activists were granted the right to peaceably assemble. Many of these protests resulted in violence, destruction, and death. The Civil Rights Movement’s views did not align with city officials’ and the majority of the population’s views, but they were allowed to march in states across the country and assemble on the National Mall. My team applied this reasoning when defending our case.
While reading through #humedialit tweets after class, I realized that several students on the opposite team were equating my group and our argument with white supremacy. Tweets include:
- “Team 1 seems to be role playing as Caucasian”
- “Not y’all defending white supremacy during black history month”
- “Dr. Patton had our class debating on white supremacy during black history month… and the RIGHT team one”
- “‘I AM A WHITE MAN’ – that young black man”
- “If we don’t win, it’s racist”
My classmates and I did not have a choice for which team we joined or side we defended. The timing and topic of this debate were out of my control. Therefore, it is highly upsetting that my fellow Howard peers would take to Twitter to publicly post these comments about my team.
As Communications students, our digital footprints are crucial to our future reputations in the field. I have closely monitored my social media image since high school in preparation for my college admissions process and employment in the Communications field–even turning down a monologue in a play about a character in high school confessing to plagiarism. I am uncomfortable that my classmates would like and retweet these remarks especially since our class’ hashtag is well-known in Howard’s School of Communications.
If anything, I learned through this activity that people can confuse a debate topic with the people tasked with defending it.
These rude tweets about my team were even more hurtful due to a previous rally Unite the Right held in Washington D.C. In 2018, a friend and I wanted to hang out and eat at a vegan restaurant in D.C. A few days before we were supposed to meet, I learned that the Unite the Right group was planning to protest very close to the restaurant we wanted to visit. I was uncomfortable with visiting D.C. that day since a high concentration of white supremacists would be in the area. When I explained this to my friend, she criticized me for avoiding the area, saying that I should stand my ground against racism and hate. I canceled our meeting, fearing a repeat of the Charlottesville rally. After subsequent plans for meeting fell through, my friend publicly posted a vlog about my “cowardice.” Now, after graduating from the community college we both attended, I have again been publicly disrespected by classmates regarding the 2018 Unite the Right rally.
The odds were stacked up against my team–arguing from the position of a white nationalist organization to an audience of HBCU students. Central to our argument was that the city could not deny protesters the right to assemble based on officials’ unsuccessful management of the 2017 Charlottesville rally and violent attacks from nonmembers of Unite the Right.
Nevertheless, where other people saw my team as supportive of a white supremacist agenda, I know that my group utilized our media literacy skills to defend the constitutionality of the First Amendment.
In this activity, I learned how quickly people can turn against each other. Participating in this debate did not warrant people calling my group racist on Twitter. I learned that people can lose sight of viewing situations from an objective point of view. Suddenly, our debate became more than a class exercise on First Amendment rights. It became a battle against white supremacy. Most importantly, this activity reminded me that literacy is the fundamental knowledge required to properly navigate one’s media landscape. Media literacy skills include deconstructing and analyzing received messages, developing awareness of manipulative media tactics, and creating media content responsibly. Literacy is essential for remaining vigilant against the spread of misinformation. Additionally, it aids the democratic process by empowering individuals to be well-informed citizens.
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