(light music) - [Announcer] "Roots Race & Culture," is made possibly in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ - Hello, my friends, and welcome to "Roots Race & Culture," where we bring you into candid conversations about shared cultural experiences.

I'm Danor Gerald.

- And I'm Lonzo Liggins.

In today's world, nothing has become more common and popular than social media.

It's brought us closer in so many ways.

Some might argue too close, if you count the number of distracted drivers you can spot scrolling through their phones on the road.

- You know what, I really like to just watch them jump when you honk at them, 'cause they're paying attention to the phone more than the road.

But there's a myriad of pros and cons to talk about here with this subject.

But we're gonna focus on the unique and influential role that social media plays on Black culture and the powerful influence that Black culture has on social media.

- And today, we are joined by some fabulous guests.

- Oh, yes.

- I'm telling you guys, it is about to go down.

We have two very influential people in the house, starting here with Rachel.

- Hi, my name is Rachel Weaver, and I am a part of the The Black Menaces, and we are a social activism, social media group that started up in February of last year with me and my four other friends who went to Brigham Young University and we just post TikToks.

- Nice, you guys are making big things happen.

- Trying to.

(all laughing) - Lots of big things.

And then, of course- - Of course, we're joined- - The legendary Kenny Akers.

- Yes.

- There we go.

- I'm humbled, I'm humbled.

Yes, sir, my name is Ken Akers, I'm an ex-military guy, born and raised native here in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I am very influential on Twitter.

- Yes.

- Yes, you are.

- And I push a lot of information out on there, and cause a little ruckus as well.

So I'm happy to be here today.

- Good ruckus.

- Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, you know, Danor and I were talking the other day, he was telling me about some statistics, and I found it quite fascinating and I wanna share with you guys.

So according to the Nielsen's 2021 African American Consumer Report, 51% of Black people spend their time daily on TikTok, 29% are Instagram dailies, and 60% use Facebook once a day or more to communicate with family and friends.

- Now that's a lot of people, those are some big numbers, really when you think about our nation, right?

But you know, a lot of the people in the older generation question the merit of social media, you know, a lot of them feel like...

I mean, there's literally books out there that talk about the science of creating habit forming applications, which a lot of these social media apps are doing.

And I think there's this feeling that we're creating sort of a generation that's unable to have actual face to face interactions, and they spend more time on their screens than they do talking to people.

So tell me, what are your thoughts about that, how would you counter that argument?

Let's start with you, Kenny.

- I appreciate that, that's some interesting numbers too, by the way.

I think from my standpoint, I think social media, what it has done, has allowed us to connect individually with certain individuals that we would not see on a daily basis.

And so there's a new platform, or there's a new communication that's happening out there amongst people, because where I'm at, the influential part, you know, I'm not back during the '60s or the '50s, back when the old civil rights leaders were having a megaphone and they were standing on a corner or Capital Hill speaking.

This way, my megaphone is that platform, and I'm speaking to thousands and thousands of people.

And so, if it impacts that individual, good, you know, then we make shift, we can make movement, we can make growth and bridge those gaps in the community.

So I find it very influential, and yeah, it's working out fantastic.

- That's great.

Now how about you, Rachel, what do you think about those ideas?

- I understand them, and I talk about this with my older family members, but I think one really cool thing about social media is it allows for people to feel validated in their experience that might feel really isolating, like here in Utah, in particular, just very low number of Black people and being at a predominately white institution, posting videos like we have on TikTok has really helped us to feel validated in our experiences from Black students who go to school in California, Black students who go to schools in Texas, Florida, wherever it may be, and feeling like we are separated in lots of ways, but also there's a singular Black experience in lots of ways, and we've been able to connect ourselves and other people through our videos in a way that wasn't possible without social media.

- I agree.

- I can feel that kind of argument.

- I agree, yes.

- It seems like you're saying we're actually creating a sense of community- - 100% - Absolutely.

- In places where may not normally get that chance.

- Absolutely.

- Well, and creating a voice, 'cause I feel like it used to be...

I don't know if you all agree with me, but back in the day, only certain people could speak about things.

- Oh, 100%.

- Sure, sure.

- Only certain people could have a voice about things.

If you had something to say about a show, if you had something to say about an artist, you had to write a letter.

You had to sit down, write that letter out, send it in, and hope they saw it, hope that your voice was even heard.

Now you can get online, spew it out there, and if what you're saying has any point of validity, then you have a valid voice all of a sudden, and I think that's great.

- And that goes back, I mean, you guys are known on social media as activists, right?

And a lot of people want to relegate that kind of concept to ancient history, but you know, this wasn't that long ago.

You hear a lot of people say, hey, well, why are we still talking about this?

My dad, right, when he was young, he was in a department store, okay?

And there was the nice, cold drinking fountain for the whites, and then there was the second class warm water for the Blacks.

And he got this crazy, mischievous idea and switched the signs, okay?

And then he goes and he hides inside a clothing rack, and he's waiting to see what happens, and along comes this white lady, and she looks and she goes to drink, and she sees the fountains, and she starts wailing, "Oh, they've stolen the water, they stole our water!"

And all these people start showing up, and pretty soon he gets panicked, 'cause all these people are here and he's freaking out, so he takes off.

Comes back a week later, the signs instead of hanging there, now they're bolted down.

(laughs) - Wow.

- Right, right.

- And this is my father's lifetime, right?

So this is not ancient history.

- No, and if you really honestly think about it, where we're at in age too, it's something that we had experienced in our youth, you know and the things, especially for me growing up here in Utah, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- We talked about this before that Utah is typically about 30 years behind any other state.

You know, it's not moving as fast as other places, so for me growing up here, I was experiencing just exactly those things while we were growing up here in Utah, so it's not that far, and we're able to speak on these experiences, so 100% correct.

- I'm curious.

Well, Rachel, you guys are...

Going back to activism, that's kind of been historically relegated as a student centered movement, right?

I know some civil rights legends, honestly, and some of them, they kind of hung up their hat once they graduated college and that kind of thing, and they started going into their regular lives.

So what happens to The Black Menaces after you all graduate?

How is that gonna look, do you know?

- Yeah, this is something we talk about a lot, actually, because two out of the original five of us, we have graduated, and that includes me and Nate, and then three people graduate this year, so we're all, by the end of this school year, will be done with our time in college, and so we want to evolve into always empowering marginalized communities within colleges and universities, but also our passions are outside of just school, you know, they're in all injustices and all avenues, and so we want to be able to move to support in diversity and inclusion in all spaces.

Just 'cause that's what I do for my full-time job, outside of Black Menaces.

- Oh, wow.

- And I know that's what other people are passionate about in different areas within our group as well, so we hope to evolve into other positions that allow us post graduation.

- I'm curious with you guys, in particular, you, Kenny, when you hear the term Black Twitter, (Kenny chuckles) what does that bring to mind?

Because you know, when I hear Black Twitter, I feel like there's a power structure there, but I would love to hear what your thoughts are.

I wanna start with you, since you're big on Twitter, that's your thing.

(Kenny sighs) - I'm humbled by your kindness, my man.

(Lonzo laughs) I think, let's just go back to us, culturally you can put us anywhere and we're gonna create our own dynamic.

You know, and that's just natural for us to have our own, you know?

We gravitate to each other, we communicate to each other, we can see a complete stranger and pick up a conversation without even know each other, and have the same relativity in life, in general.

Black Twitter, again, that megaphone has connected so many of the Black community.

You know, there are so many more interesting things that are going on on Black Twitter, 'cause I find myself on Black Twitter and I'm gone.

And I'll be out there for days, you know, reading stuff and researching stuff that's getting put out there.

So it's a better way for me to have that barbershop talk.

- That's a good way to put it.

- With particular individuals that I may not see right here in Utah.

- That's great.

So being in Utah...

Sorry.

- No, no, no, no, go ahead.

- Being in Utah, that's a unique place for us, and I'm curious about The Black Menaces.

Like what kind of questions do you guys ask, what is it that makes you so unique in your perspective, and what did you do, because you guys blew up, you know?

- Yeah, we did, kind of overnight.

- Yeah, I mean, I've seen you guys on CNN.

- Yeah, unexpectedly too.

We did not anticipate that.

We really just picked up our phones and we were like, let's make some videos about making fun of BYU.

In our early videos, you can see we're laughing in a lot of them, because we were trying to laugh through a lot of the pain that we were experiencing.

And really in our videos, as we started to make more and realize the traction we were getting, we wanted to highlight the uniqueness of going to a very conservative, white university.

Which, predominately white institutions are most colleges, but the unique numbers in how white it is, right, and over 80% of the student body is white, and very, very conservative, very, very religious, that creates its own unique culture and issues associated with that, that is just not common and known to most people outside of Utah.

And so we really chose questions that would highlight that unique experience for us as Black people at such a Christian, conservative, white school.

- I know, whenever I watch those, I noticed that whenever you ask the questions, you'll ask the question and just kind of, that's it.

- Yeah.

- You're never just like, why is that?

Why do you feel that way?

You know, you guys just stop at the question.

Is there a reason behind that?

- I think, we really just wanted to pick up on the difference in the way people thought and really understanding that.

We figured if we asked more questions, people kind of wanna say more and maybe give you information that isn't answering directly the question, so we just ask straight up, why do you feel this way, and that's it, and then we walk away, because we don't want to even leave any sentiment of what our feelings are, because when you ask that, sometimes your own feelings get involved, and we just wanted to highlight what they thought and their perspective and let people who were watching have their own takeaways from their own comments that they made.

- Yeah.

- Interesting.

Now so when you start to build a following like this, you know, I've had this conversation with my wife, sometimes influencers make mistakes.

They say things and it can really have a negative impact on another person's life.

- True.

- In fact, it just happened recently in my area.

And this young kid basically was getting death threats and these things, because some influencer said that he was dressing in blackface during Halloween, which is this incident that happened down there in Cedar City, and he actually wasn't the person who did it.

So his whole life got thrown in a whirlwind.

So that makes me think when you start to develop this influence, 'cause not everybody necessarily qualified to have that kind of a voice, how do you curate your content?

How do you decide what's worth posting and what you want to avoid?

- That's a good question.

For me, having that military background comes along with some integrity guidelines for me.

I do have a structured morality in regards to the things that I bark about on social media, and I do take in consideration that doxxing is out of the picture.

So what I try to do is I try to lasso as much- - Explain doxxing for those who may not be familiar with it, like myself.

- Yeah.

I mean, so in maybe a layman's term, putting somebody on blast.

- Oh, got you, got you.

- Just straight up putting them on blast, here's your name, here's your place of business, here's your work, here's what you're doing, this is where this person's at.

So I try not to get into that nitty gritty nasty work, because it's just a little bit too much and going over the edge.

So what I try to do, is I try to corral the incident, and I try to pick out the particulars in regards to what had happened, and then if I need to, on my level, and I do have that level, and the people that I communicate with in the city, I will notify certain individuals and I will let them know, this is the incident that's been brought to my attention, you might wanna take interest in this.

- So you have some connection to the police and government.

- Very much so, absolutely.

Police, government, I mean, you name it, in the medical field, you know it.

- Which puts you at a really high level of responsibility.

- Sure, absolutely, 1,000%.

And I take even the most minuscule or even large problem very seriously, because I don't want to disrupt somebody and have that kick back on me, because I do have responsibility to the people that follow me, and I'm trying to educate them and try to put out the proper information, so I don't want that to backlash on me and discredit the work that I'm trying to do for us.

- You're looking sharp in that bow tie too, by the way.

(Danor laughs) - So what are your ultimate goals with being on social media?

Is it to educate?

Is it to inform people?

Or do you feel like it's a form of activism?

Do you feel like you're- - [Kenny] It's... Oh, please- - Yeah, I mean, Black Menaces in particular, we have a mission statement, and people on our website.

We want to help marginalized communities and predominately white institutions, that's like our focus, but really, we want to give a voice to people who feel voiceless.

I feel like that's been an evolving goal of ours, as we've made more videos and done more content and things around our purpose.

It is really helping people to feel like, oh, here's a group of people that represent me when I don't feel represented.

There's been countless people who feel like our videos represent them and they unique identity at BYU.

We've had people come up to us crying, we've had people write us letters thanking us, or people who go to different schools, they just feel so validated and represented by what we do, and so our purpose is really to create education for people who aren't aware of it.

'Cause they learn a lot, and it sparks conversation for people to think about themselves and the way they think, but also helping people to feel validated by their experiences through what we do.

- I love that.

- And we actually have a video of one of the other Black Menaces.

- Okay, which one?

(all laughing) - Let's find out.

- Go ahead and pop it up here and show it to our viewers.

- Hi, my name is Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, and I'm the executive director of The Black Menaces.

I really think that the success that we've had as the Black Menaces has allowed us to truly step into a space of being able to amplify and empower as many people from marginalized communities as possible.

Just about two months ago, we did a nationwide protest with about 30 different universities, in particular to queer rights.

And I think we would never had had that opportunity unless we've had the success that we've had where 70,000 plus people follow us and we're able to connect with millions through each video.

So I think it's really allowed us to amplify and empower as many people as possible.

Because of social media, I think The Black Menaces, that we've been able to initiate this type of social and cultural change at BYU but in also colleges across the country.

I think, one is to start conversations.

We've had numerous people come up to us saying because of our videos and because of the questions that we've asked that they, in their own home, are able to talk about hard topics, they're able to have that foundation of a question and the response and the understanding that, oh, we need to be aware of this, we need to think about it.

Kind of opening minds in that way, but also the social and cultural change it can be seen on different college campuses.

We've had tons of Black students and other students of marginalized identities and communities come to us saying, okay, we want to work with y'all, we want to show the world that our experience at our university isn't the best experience.

We want to see how we can work to change that.

I think one difficulty that social media can have on myself and on a ton of people is that it can really narrow our ways of thinking.

The difficulty is that with algorithms to increase engagement, you know, social media platforms, they send you what you already think, what you already feel, what you laugh about.

They send you who you are already are in your mind, and I think that is helpful at times, but it can be a little difficult, 'cause it can narrow your mind.

I think the way that we counteract that is that we have to make sure that we're always engaging in full holistic education, or we're not only engaging to have confirmation bias, but to enhance our minds, to engage, and to understand at a greater level than we did previously, and then we're really counteracting the algorithm, and we're beating what Jeff Bezos doesn't want us to do.

(all laughing) - Counteracting the algorithm.

- Are we in the matrix?

- That's a lot.

- I mean, that's a little bit of what you do when you post on social media, you think about these things strategically.

- [Kenny] Very much so, very much so.

- I want to bring this locally, because both of you are here in Utah.

There's a lot of chatter that's been going on over the last couple of years, you know, take for example Donovan Mitchell, stuff that's happened in the Davis school district, a lot of talk about racism in Utah, does it exist, was Donovan Mitchell treated poorly here while he was here?

I'd love to get your thoughts about how social media has played a part in maybe exposing some of the racism or if it was just always there, and how maybe social media maybe helped to really, really bring it to the light.

- Well, there's a lot to unpack there, of course, and there's a lot to unpack about any of these topics.

I think you have the believers and you have the non-believers, and in the middle you have these individuals that are questionable, either side of the fence.

If we're speaking about these things, the non-believers are gonna be out in swarms to tell us that these things don't exist, and I think that's what we're hearing.

We're hearing the non-believers speak up the loudest.

But the ones that are actually in the middle that are listening, they're not speaking out, because they're listening and they're trying to hear us, and they're trying to adjust to what the problem is.

And these are a lot of professionals here in Utah.

You know, legislative to police departments and all types of areas, they may not be speaking out the most, but they are listening to us, and so I think what we have to continue to do is we have to continue to speak, and we have to continue to get that out.

Donovan Mitchell was huge about that, and I've done a lot of talking about his particular instances that he was exposed to being pulled over and he was treated as a normal citizen in regards to the stereotypes and those things that go along with getting pulled over, being Black in Utah.

- Yeah, driving while Black.

- Yeah, and so he's had those experiences that he's try to speak about, and he's got a lot of backlash.

And those are the disbelievers.

So the ones that are in the middle are listening and they're trying to adjust those things, but it's not moving fast enough, so we have to speak about it louder.

- What do you think about it?

- I think that, exactly what you were saying, I think that this just gave a platform to what was already happening, particularly at the university level, it was already happening, the way people thought was there.

the comments they were saying weren't new to us, right?

- Right, right, right.

- It just amplified what we already knew.

It gave a platform to expose what the real problem was here, and it really called to attention things that people maybe weren't questioning before.

The people were just like, oh, this is just how it is, this is just how people think, and there's nothing wrong with it.

And I think what has been cool is people who weren't interviewed by us, but kind of thought like the person we interviewed, they realized hearing it back what that sounds like, (group agreeing) and think, oh wait, maybe that isn't right, maybe I shouldn't think like that, and it has made them self-evaluate and question, why do I believe this?

Why didn't I know who Rosa Parks was?

Why didn't I know who this influential Black person is that they showed, right?

And so that's kind of been a really cool part about what we've done is it's taught people without us really even trying, because it's made them be reflective of themselves.

- I think one area where it's really changed too is when it comes to... For example, when women go missing.

I remember, I was here, and I know you were probably here at the time when Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped.

It was huge news, I mean, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing about Elizabeth Smart.

And a lot of people in minority communities, we would be like, we've got women missing.

I remember there was a young little child here named Rosie Tapia that was missing, she was killed and nobody was paying much attention to that, but Elizabeth Smart was a big deal.

We were saying those things, but we weren't being heard.

- [Rachel And Danor] Right.

- Nowadays, when someone goes missing, in particular if it's like a white woman, and some big, huge deal, social media goes crazy and people are starting to become more aware of that now, so I think that's one very positive effect of social media.

- Well, you said it earlier too, I mean, we're in the room now.

We're in here.

We have to detach ourselves and think that we no longer need their permission.

- There we go.

- We are not asking for their filter anymore to say, hey, I have a problem, is there something that you guys can talk about this or shed some attention to it?

We don't have to do that anymore.

We can do it ourselves.

- Well, it's that galvanizing effect of having a platform with so many people listening and hearing the voice.

- Right, right.

- It's kind of like television, you know, for a long time, that was how people were influenced, because they were all watching TV.

But now, there's all these ways.

And really appreciate the fact that you care enough to spend the time to do it.

'Cause it's not easy.

- No.

- It's a lot of work.

That's one of the misconceptions about social media.

People think, oh, you got a phone, you can just post.

It's a lot of work.

- [Rachel] Yeah.

- First and foremost, man, I love me some us.

- Yes!

- That's where it starts.

I love us, you know?

And not that I don't love anybody else either, but the culture and the beauty in who we are as individuals, I want to protect that.

- Right.

- You know, and I want to protect that for future generations to come, man.

- Now we got a couple minutes left.

I was curious for both of you, do you get a lot of hate?

Do a lot of people come at you?

- [Danor] I'm sure you get a lot of bad feedback.

- Ooh, come on, man, all day.

- I know it's a couple minutes.

We can talk about it in the podcast.

- Yeah.

(all laughing) - We're gonna need more, we're gonna need more.

- We got more.

But just kind of a quick one minute Reader's Digest version of some of the hate that you guys receive.

- No, I mean, you name it.

Man, I get the death threats.

You know, I get people that recognize me from being on other television programs, and they approach me and they say hateful remarks.

- [Lonzo] Wow.

- It's pretty aggressive sometimes.

Some people say some pretty foul stuff.

So I don't know how you guys, if you get that attention too as well.

- It's a little different.

I think, people, the supporters are very loud, and the haters are a little more quiet, and they're normally anonymous, like fake social media accounts and they will troll our accounts and say different things, more Instagram than on TikTok, we've noticed, and- - Has the institution been supportive?

- The institution has been nothing, no support nor outward trying to stop us either.

- So they're leaving you alone?

- They're leaving us alone, yeah.

- That is a form of support.

(laughs) - I guess.

- For sure.

- Sure, sure, we'll say that.

- I just kind of wonder how it would be if it were on the other end and there was a really popular white group of students who came up with this amazing thing that- - Oh, 100%.

- [Kenny] Oh, you already know.

- Oh, we already know.

- I mean, 'cause they're highlighting a different reality.

I mean, we're making BYU look bad, and we're showing the parts of BYU that they don't even want to admit that they have themselves that they are clueless to still and act clueless to even though our whole TikTok is evidence of a racial problem on campus.

But yeah, we have the people that give us hate.

We have been called crazy things, like people will email us hateful things.

- [Lonzo] Okay, now hold on real quick.

- Okay, I won't get into it.

- [Lonzo] We're gonna talk more about this later on.

- In the podcast, but yeah.

- Let's get your handle real quick.

- How do they get ahold of you?

- It's Black Menaces everywhere, Instagram, Twitter- - [Lonzo] The Black Menaces or just Black Menaces?

- Black Menaces.

- Okay, all social media.

- Instagram, Twitter.

- Kenny?

- Yeah.

- Yes, sir.

- TikTok.

- My strong point is Twitter, you can find me, KenEAkers, A-K-E-R-S, That's KenEAkers.

- Beautiful.

And we're also going to be having a great guest in our podcast, another Black Menace.

- Yes.

- Who is that?

- Nate Byrd, who- - Nate Byrd.

- Nate is like my big brother, I feel like, so I'm so happy to have Nate on here.

- All right, well, thanks for joining us, guys.

- All right, well, join us next time.

It's gonna be a lot of fun.

We're gonna be talking about the Black history in Ogden, Utah.

So until them, I'm Danor Gerald.

- And I'm Lonzo Liggins.

"Roots Race & Culture," we are out.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Roots Race & Culture" is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.