High profile influencers and celebrities are expected to take this movement and encourage where it matters and many have, including X:Men Star Evan Peters (also recognized from American Horror Story) who ended up apologizing after retweeting a post encouraging the attacks on looters.
The actual tweet has since been deleted but it read,
“I can watch these piece of shit looters get tackled all day!”
Evan Peters himself did not write the tweet but his choice to repost it implied he agreed and/or found humor in it which at this moment is extremely inappropriate. Prior to his retweet Peters had been silent on the matters of the protest which was noticed by his followers.
Attached to the post was a video of someone being entertained by the news and excitedly rooting for police to catch a running looter. Peters deleted the repost after receiving backlash from fans saying:
“I don’t condone the guy watching the news at all in the video which I have deleted,” he wrote. “I unknowingly retweeted it. I’m deeply upset it got on my newsfeed. I sincerely apologize if anyone was offended. I support black lives matter wholeheartedly.”
Then he followed up by posting a black square on Instagram with no caption. His following was still not having it and questioned his intention and position of activism asking him to explain, educate and/or donate to the cause.
The black square trend that swooped social media June 3nd aka #BlackoutTuesday was a stance the entertainment industry was taking to silence post that didn’t directly educate or support the protest for justice. The hashtag used for this blackout was #theshowmustbepaused and #blackouttuesday but the mix up of information and everyone’s eagerness to join the movement led to “digital sharpie”- the erasure and suppression of online information. Which is a whole other topic that devastated many and hid vital information from public, distracting from the actual purpose of the Blackout for the entertainment industry.
There’s many layers to this protest for justice. Layers of trauma, layers of misinformation, layers of media manipulation, layers of malpractice, layers of murder, layers of mistakes, layers of history, layers of stories untold, layers of understanding, layers of the misunderstood, layers and layer and layers of injustice. Whether Peter Evans meant to repost that tweet because he doesn’t agree with the looting, his mistake lies in his lack of compassion. Speaking up during this time has to be very specific and has to be special. There’s actually no space for mistakes at this time, peoples lives are at risk and the insensitivity of the world is what bring us here today and won’t heal the wounds for tomorrow.
