Dear Corporations, Don’t Tell Us ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Show Us.

It’s time to add systemic change to your symbolic actions.

It seems no one wants to be caught dead without a protest selfie amidst this global wave of antiracist protests. People don’t just want to make sure they were among the marchers, they want you to see that they were there.

This is probably because, organizer Jonathan Smucker explains, many people participate in activism in a similar way that people engage in fashion: namely, many people are more interested in signaling their values to their peers than in obtaining a tangible political objective.

They want you to see them saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ so that you’ll know what type of people they are — that they’re on the “right side of history,” that they’re not racists. I don’t say these things as criticism but as observation.

Corporations do it too. At a time when people from Dallas to Amsterdam are chanting “Black Lives Matter,” many companies apparently want to be seen singing along.

“Black lives matter: Amazon stands in solidarity with the Black community,” reads the home screen of Amazon’s Fire TV.

Companies like Viacom, Comcast, Starbucks, and others have made similar statements.