Platitudes and Protest: How the Music Industry Responded to Blackout Tuesday

Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang made no mention of silence, let alone a black box, when they called on their peers in the music industry to devote Tuesday June 2nd to a new initiative, #TheShowMustBePaused. The idea was to force the industry — which is built on black talent, but still largely run by white people — to take a long look at itself and consider, perhaps, where the same white supremacy and privilege that led to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others, may be lurking in its own structures and practices. But by Tuesday, the idea behind #TheShowMustBePaused had spread beyond the music industry and was being widely referred to as Blackout Tuesday…