The grand jury decision not to bring charges in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, announced Wednesday, was followed with public demonstrations in cities across the nation -- and the Internet.
Thousands of tweeters are up in arms against racial profiling and police brutality in America, issues that have been hard to ignore amid recent protests over the police killings of Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Akai Gurley and others. #BlackLivesMatter and #HandsUpDontShoot have played a large role in addressing these issues on social media, but there's a new hashtag in town: #CrimingWhileWhite.
Instead of highlighting incidents of prejudice against people of color, #CrimingWhileWhite quickly zeroed in on white privilege, straight from the mouths of those who know it best.
The hashtag shines a bright light on an ugly truth -- see for yourself in the examples below.
My 13yo son and his friends were loitering at Walgreens recently. Only his black friend got searched for shoplifting. ~ #CrimingWhileWhite ~
— Dave Hoover (@davehoover) December 4, 2014
Someone very close to me assaulted a state police officer at a traffic stop once. Was out by 9 am and later beat case. #CrimingWhileWhite
— Natural (@NatAnglin) December 3, 2014
The claims in the above tweets have not been independently verified by The Huffington Post.