Welcome back to This Week in Black Twitter, your weekly digest of the happenings on Black Twitter and cultural conversations on the web. Topics will span the gamut — with pop culture, politics, sports, lifestyles and everything in between. This week: Officer-involved shootings spark outrage and nationwide protests, while #CarefreeBlackKids2k16 provides much-needed hope.
1. Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was pinned down and fatally shot by Baton Rouge police on Tuesday.
Officers were responding to a 911 call about a man with a gun. Sterling sold CDs and DVDs outside of a convenience store with permission from the store owner. The store owner, Abdullah Muflahi, said Sterling had a gun but wasn't reaching for it at the time of the shooting, The Advocate reported.
Videos showing Sterling pinned down while being shot at point-blank range went viral online, sparking outrage.
The New York Daily News ran a graphic cover of Sterling's lifeless body on Thursday, which you can view here.
The cover drew a range of responses, with some charging that the publication was monetizing off black deaths and others, namely the editor in chief, arguing that the image needs to be seen.