I LOVE Black History Month. Why? Because it’s everyone’s history! Originating as a week to celebrate the black accomplishments that were undermined due to slavery, segregation, (and humanities complete failure of recognizing black lives as valuable), we now get to take a month to highlight and celebrate, the incredible accomplishments of black men and women in history. Black men and women have shaped our world in incredible ways. Below are a just few to highlight:
- Scott Joplin – composer and pianist
- Major Taylor – cycling legend
- Zelda Wynn Valdes – fashion designer (creator of playboy and size inclusive clothing, also first black designer on broadway aka kind of a huge deal )
- Marjorie Joyner – first permanent hair wave machine (Women everywhere can thank her for the tools we use on our hair today)
- Alice Parker – patented the first gas furnace
- Coretta Scott King – civil rights activist and musician
In a recent video I posted (linked here), I talk about diversifying our social media feeds. It can be difficult to do because our social media shows us people who look, think, and talk like ourselves but there is a way to change it. Engaging with accounts and posts that are differing from your norm (I’m not talking about arguing with them) will help to create a mixture of beliefs, religions, skin color, and world views that appear on your social media. This is a good thing, I promise. In order to love people well, we have to be both educated and empathetic.
Remember, our social media wants us to like what we see, so they create algorithms that are designed to keep us in a constant confirmation bias, and we are not being challenged to think differently.
When I initially googled “hashtags to diversify your feed,” I didn’t find much. So, I figured I would compile a list of hashtags that I have been following to make sure my social media feed is not full of people who look, think, and act like me. Enjoy!
- #womeninscience
- #diversityandinclusion
- #blackbusinessowner
- #blackinfluencer
- #sizeinclusive
- #exploreoutdoors
- #everyoneoutdoors
- #unlikelyhikers
- #blm
- #blacklivesmatter
- #inclusion
- #diversity
- #blackcreatives
- #womenwhowork
- #blackculturematters
- #allblacklivesmatter
- #colorism
- #ablism
- #blackwriters
- #womeninleadership
**disclaimer: these are used to diversify my feed, so, if these are already on your feed try replacing the gener/skin color/belief in the hashtag to the opposite of what you believe**