Students will then choose from one of three historical events to research and understand why the call to action in each instance, was so widely felt and responded to. They are all provided with an article to provide background information on their chosen event. (These articles can be found in the lesson plans in the appendix.) After reading, all students who chose the same event will work together to make a presentation to the class. As a team the students will lead the class through an analysis of the moral and ethical concerns surrounding the event.
Research Option 1: The LA Uprising
On March 30, 1991, George Holiday filmed a video that would rivet the attention of our nation and change the history of Las Angeles. In 1991 video cameras were not as widespread as they are today. Cameras of the time were analog not digital, large in size, and inconvenient to carry around. People typically only hired a cameraman or carried a camera to special occasions.
The video filmed that day inspired an uprising that led to the loss of over 50 lives and property damage that is estimated at 1 billion dollars with one thousand buildings destroyed.9 Over 6000 people were arrested for looting or arson. Ultimately, 9800 California National Guard Troops were called in.10 The event was The LA Uprising.
The video was of the beating of Rodney King, a motorist who fled from the police in his car and was chased by them. Once they stopped him and got him on the ground, the video shows policemen hitting him with batons 56 times. Because of the beating, Rodney King suffered 11 fractures and multiple other injuries including brain damage.
The video was turned in to the local television station KTLA the next day. Ultimately, it reached a national audience. It immediately inspired the hope and horror of Black America as it was the first videotaped evidence of police brutality directed against an African American that was seen widely. Prior to this video, the larger society generally dismissed the complaints of African-Americans, ignoring their physical and emotional scars, repeatedly accepting the version of the story told by police as absolute truth.
African Americans across the country trusted that in the face of this piece of irrefutable video evidence, the courts would convict the officers. Because of this there was not much protest at the time that the video was initially released.
The call to activism was not felt until a year later when the hope of Black America was dashed. On April 29, 1992, in spite of visual evidence, the court acquitted the four officers that carried out the beating. Within three hours protesters filled the streets of LA.
Research Option 2: The Arab Spring
On December 18, 2010 a video was filmed that caused an explosion in social media which ultimately led to the overthrow of authoritarian governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. It inspired events that led up to civil war in Egypt, Yemen and Syria. It inspired rebellions in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Palestine, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, and Sudan. The historical video shows Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire at the local government office in his hometown, Sidi Bouzid. His final words were “How do you expect me to make a living?”11
This story begins on December 17, 2010. Mohamed Bouazizi, a fruit vendor who had an unlicensed fruit cart, was stopped by a policewoman who, in addition to demanding a fine, overturned his fruit cart and confiscated the scales that he used to weigh the fruit. Further, the policewoman allegedly slapped him in the face, spit in his face, and insulted his dead father. The culminating act in this assault on Bouazizi’s dignity was chillingly similar to that of the United States Courts to the beating of Rodney King: callous indifference. On December 18, 2010 Bouazizi went to complain to local municipal officials about his treatment and to request the return of his fruit scales and they refused to see him. He is quoted as having said “"If you don't see me, I'll burn myself.”10 Within one hour after officials refused to see him, he returned to the government building poured fuel over himself and set himself on fire.
The video was spread across Tunisia and later that day there was a protest in Sidi Bouzid. The videos from this protest were spread by social media throughout the Middle East, sparking other protests that were also shared by social media. After ten days of protests across Tunisia, President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali visited Sid Bouzid to quell the unrest. The protests continued and on January 14, 2011, less than a month after the protests began, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled the country. On October 23, 2011, Tunisia held its first democratic elections.
After seeing the successes in Tunisia, protests spread to many other Arab nations. Unfortunately, most of these other protests were not as successful as Tunisia’s.
An article in the Huffington Post states: “In retrospect, little good came from the Arab Spring. In those countries where the U.S. and its allies intervened, Libya and Syria, and to a lesser extent Yemen, brutal regimes were either replaced by even more brutal regimes, or existing regimes became even harsher or gave way to complete political chaos. Those countries that avoided political chaos did so by and large by making cosmetic changes while clamping down even harder on popular unrest. Ultimately, the Arab Spring did not solve the crisis of governmental legitimacy that plagues the Middle East, it simply resulted in just enough additional repression to defer the inevitable explosion to a later date.”12
The lesson plan in the Classroom Activities Section includes a reading and questions to answer. Students will weigh the benefits and collateral damage of these revolutions.
Research Option 3: Pizzagate
Pizzagate is a social media propaganda campaign that influenced an election and caused shots to be fired. One example of the power of social media to promote propaganda is Pizzagate. This conspiracy theory had maximum impact because it entered the mainstream Internet just nine days before the 2016 presidential elections.
Pizzagate began as rumor in early 2016 that was circulated on the dark web and then entered the mainstream web, becoming one of the most talked about stories in the days before the 2016 election.
The rumor holds that a powerful group of Democrats ran a child sex trafficking ring that operated out of Washington DC area restaurants and businesses. The most noted location commented about was the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria, hence the name Pizzagate. Some of the rumors said that there Hillary Clinton participated in orgies with children and her campaign manager John Podesta carried out satanic rituals.
As in most cases of propaganda, aspects of the story contain some tidbits of reality.
In the fall of 2016, Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner was under investigation for sexting with underage girls. His wife Huma Abedin was at the time Hillary Clinton’s vice campaign chairperson. The NYC police did indeed conduct an investigation of Anthony Weiner’s emails. Some emails were found that were related to Hillary Clinton’s violation of government policy while she was secretary of state. It is true that her campaign manager, John Podesta’s emails were leaked to the public in November 2016. What evolved from these truths was enough to cast doubt on Hillary Clinton’s reputation just before the election.
Skimpy connections were made by propagandists and spread in the conservative media. For example: “Twitter users begin posting results of searches of the WikiLeaks leaked emails from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, including speculation that phrases such as ‘pizza’ refer to young girls, ‘cheese pizza’ to pedophiles, ‘ice cream’ to male prostitutes and ‘hotdog stand in Hawaii’ to sex trafficking.”13 These lines are the media that constituted the call to action.
October 28th 2016, ten days before the election James Comey announced that he was re-investigating the Hillary Clinton and he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
October 29, 2016 Carmen Katz tweeted that the New York Police Department were investigating the Clintons for involvement in an international child enslavement and sex ring.
On November 2, just six days before the election, in an interview of private investigator and webcast host Douglas Hagmann claimed on the online channel, Infowars to have a source related to the New York police department that claims that Anthony Weiner’s emails held evidence that Hillary Clinton participated in events where sex acts were performed on minors. Infowars is one of the biggest conspiracy theory outlets online. The Inforwars website boasts 7.7 million unique visitors per month.
There were some in Trump’s campaign who followed and utilized this information to the benefit of his campaign. A popular chant during the campaign was “lock her up.” This chant may have taken on a life beyond the email scandal to become related to the rumors surrounding this smear campaign. Michael Flynn, who was slated by Trump to be the national security advisor, shared propaganda in November 2016, to his then 106,000 followers about Hillary Clinton's involvement in a sex ring and her campaign manager John Podesta’s involvement in a satanic ritual where he drank human bodily fluids. One such tweet was posted four days before the election.
“U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc...MUST READ! https://t.co/O0bVJT3QDr
— General Flynn (@GenFlynn).”14 According to informatics researcher Fillipio Menczer, tweets related to Pizzagate would be retweeted around the internet more than 1.4 million times by over 250,000 accounts during its first five weeks.
Fillipio Menczer’s research also found evidence that some of these re-tweeters were probably web-bots because there were dozens of accounts that retweeted the information more than 900 times per day. Menczer found that as many as 22% of these re-tweets were later deleted.
Consequences of this social media campaign:
The owner of the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria received hundreds of death threats. On December 4th 2016, a heavily armed private citizen, Edgar Welch, drove from his home in North Carolina to Washington DC to investigate the claims that there was a child sex ring operating out of the restaurant. In the presence of customers, including children, Welch fired his AK-15 semiautomatic rifle three times inside of the restaurant.
The full impact of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory on the 2016 election is unknown. However, according to a Washington Post article “More than a third of American adults said the so-called Pizzagate accusations involving Mrs. Clinton’s staff were ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ true, as did nearly half of registered Republicans, according to pollsters.”15
