 |
Me and my brothers literally had to rehearse talking to the cops w/ my parents #Igotthetalk
— Soldier NotSlim (@HeDoinTooMuch) August 9, 2014(CNN) -- If you're African-American, you might have gotten "the talk."
It's a discussion, usually with parents, about how they need to behave around police officers because of the color of their skin.
On social media, many African-American users have used the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, to share their stories about "the talk."
On Twitter and Facebook, the hashtags #IGotTheTalk and #IGaveTheTalk have been trending topics since the shooting on Saturday. In the posts, users recount being taught,
"Me and my brothers literally had to rehearse talking to the cops w/ my parents," wrote a Twitter user with the screen name @HeDoinTooMuch.
Other tweets have included:
I've never met a black man who didn't get the talk about the cops. At least not an American black man. #IGotTheTalk
— Michael Bae (@rodimusprime) August 9, 2014And please let's be clear: it's not only black boys being shot, beaten, and killed. Black girls are also targets. #IGotTheTalk
— Andre E. Johnson (@aejohnsonphd) August 10, 2014My son got the talk despite barely passing the paperbag test and being the son of a cop. He got the talk from a COP. #IGotTheTalk
— PiscesOnFire (@rnboskye) August 10, 2014After getting patted down outside my NYU dorm, #IGotTheTalk from my fams about keeping my beard short and remembering to get badge numbers.
— Nigel Scott (@n_lewis744) August 10, 2014#IGotTheTalk at age 9. My mother told me if stopped by the cops dont even pull out my school ID because they might think I had a gun & shoot
— Elon James White (@elonjames) August 10, 2014.
The Ferguson shooting has played out in a big way on sites like Twitter, where information spreads at lightning speed.
Full coverage: Ferguson shooting
News of two journalists being arrested while covering the aftermath of the shooting went viral on social media Wednesday, focusing attention on what some in the town have compared to a war zone.
And on Twitter and elsewhere, the "hacktivist" group Anonymous was working to expose the name of the officer who shot Brown before police revealed his identity on Friday.
In a related viral trend this week, students and other social media users -- many of them black -- shared images of themselves with their hands up in the air.
At Howard University, students at a back-to-school housing meeting posted a photograph in which hundreds stood in the "hands up" position, which witnesses say Brown had done to show he was unarmed before he was shot.
In a Facebook post Thursday, the historically black university in Washington said that it was "proud of our students who have united peacefully to show they will not stand for the senseless violence anymore. Thank you to the Howard University Student Association for leading and organizing this display of solidarity."
Complete coverage of the Ferguson shooting and protests
