The Montgomery Brawl was a moment for Black TikTok to shine

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Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

The Great Montgomery Brawl of 2023, aka the Alabama Sweet Tea Party, aka Fadesgiving, is the best thing to happen to Black people since the election of Barack Obama. And when I say “the Montgomery Brawl,” I don’t mean just the people of that town standing up and fighting back against the racist wypipo who attacked the co-captain of the Harriott II. Shout out to all of them, salute to all of them, but when I think about the Montgomery Brawl, I think about what they did as well as the reaction of everyone else in Black America. The brawl became a massive sociocultural event in Black America because so many people watched the video and then a lot of them ran to social media and created brilliant responses that reflected how celebratory we all were about the brawl. They were an audience that cheered ecstatically thus making the show even better.

I think the one that I loved the most was this video by @jamescharlesmorris who laid footage of the brawl over the theme song to “Good Times.” That song is iconic in Black America so it’s powerful to combine that song about Black survival with newly iconic footage of Black folks fighting to survive. Morris also had fun with the titles — the show that was being introduced starred “A brother just doing his job,” “Michael Evans Phelps” and “UNC with the chair,” but what hit me deeply was the last two: “Created by Consequences & Repercussions.” Yes. And “Produced by the Ancestors.” Hell yes. Because the ancestors were definitely there, helping and overseeing us on that day.  

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Then again, I also loved seeing @srob0609 take the theme song to “The Fresh Prince” and lay it over photos of the white family that got beat up. It makes perfect comedic sense to see those clowns and hear Will Smith (who, like them, was inappropriately violent in public) say, “Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down.” For sure.

But also, @mothermittie79, who took the legendary Bill Withers’ song “Grandma’s Hands” and flipped it into a song called “Folding Chair.” I could go on and on. 

TikToker @paigebryanofficial summed it up well when she said “I love how unserious we are.” She’s talking about how we took so much joy in making jokes and having fun as the Montgomery story played out. Watching Black TikTok, you can tell that we were overjoyed watching that video. We made jokes about watching it one million times. We made jokes lionizing the Black people who came to their brother’s aid. We made jokes clowning the white people they beat down righteously. It was like the entire Black internet became an Amen Corner, co-signing what those Montgomery folks did. Or like, when someone makes a great joke in a work meeting and then everyone else in the room has to add their own tag to it, except this time, the original joke is so good and all the tags are so good that everyone in the room is laughing so hard they’re crying. For real, Black TikTok is occupying the space that Black Twitter used to dominate.

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The beautiful thing about the Montgomery Brawl is that it gave us a communal response to anti-Black violence. The community of Montgomery rose up to fight back. And then the community of the Black interwebs rose up to celebrate what they did. They made winning the brawl even sweeter. The Black internet became the best cheerleaders ever. And, as they used to say on Twitter, I am so here for it.

Touré is a host and Creative Director at theGrio. He is the host of the docuseries podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and the animated show Star Stories with Toure which you can find at TheGrio.com/starstories. He is also the host of the podcast “Toure Show” and the podcast docuseries “Who Was Prince?” He is the author of eight books including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the ebook The Ivy League Counterfeiter.

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