I don’t get the “I am a man” thing…?

It’s an initiative that Mackie is involved with that encourages men (and black men in particular) to register to vote, because men have been significantly less likely to vote than women for the last 40 years in the USA, and black men in particular have very high rates of disenfranchisement and low rates of voter turnout largely due to voter supression, living in underserved communities etc. The website is IAmAMan.vote, hence the masks.

I Am A Man was a famous slogan of the movement against segregation in the USA, in particular connected to a strike in Memphis in 1968 by mostly Black workers. “Am I not a man?” was a slogan of abolitionists at the time of slavery, to which the new slogan was a symbolic answer. The posters became iconic during the Civil Rights Movement’s time.

#in particular I think i am a man is in contrast#to black men so often being called *boy*#by white people#as an assertion of authority#and a denial of agency and full humanity#(which is why we! never! have! a white character! say that! to a black character! ever!)#and is also why *man* is used so much as a form of address by and among black americans