Tuesday, June 2, 2020, has been designated "Blackout Tuesday," which entails posting a black screen to your social media in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sure, the good intentions are there, but this is an extremely detrimental idea.

All day today, I have been scrolling through a never-ending stream of blank, black squares, and I cannot help but be infuriated by the fact that we are willingly allowing ourselves to be silenced during a time when we need to be loud.

We have no choice but to be outspoken.

We need to be loud.

We need to be obnoxious.

We need to encourage those around us to do the same.

We need to be heard.

But the blank Blackout Tuesday squares do the exact opposite.

We are inadvertently censoring ourselves and muting voices, and this is exactly what we need to be fighting against. Now is not the time to stop talking. We cannot stop until we have justice and equality.

If you have shared a black square today, this is your call to action. Share information with your followers instead. Tell them where to donate. Tell them when there will be a nearby protest that they can join. Tell them how to learn, what to read, what to watch, and where to go for more information. Give them petitions that they can sign.

Posting a black square does none of these, and therefore really does nothing at all. Showing support is great, but action is what we need.

Please, take action and encourage your social media followers to do the same. That is the only way this will ever end.

It is absolutely terrifying to see so many people joining in on a trend that effectively gets us all to shut up. It is terrifying to know that people have been so quick to hop on the bandwagon of something that calls for us to sit down and be silent when this is the last thing we should be doing.

It is terrifying to see so many people losing sight of what's important, and losing touch with what the core problem is here, and I can only hope that someone reading this will recognize that and pay it forward.