In early June 2014, Syafika Hudson was searching for a job between Twitter and email when she noticed the strange hashtag #EndFathersDay that was proliferating on social media platforms.
The posters claimed to be black feminists but had questionable handles like @NayNayCan'tStop, @CisHate, and @LatrineWatts. They declared that they wanted to abolish Father's Day because it was a symbol of patriarchy and oppression.
Ms. Hudson thought they looked like parodies of black women spouting absurd propositions rather than real people. As Ms. Hudson told Forbes in 2018, “If you have half the sense that God gave you a bowl of cold oatmeal, you know this is not a feminist sentiment.”
But the hashtag continued to trend, causing a stir in the Twitter community, and even conservative news outlets picked it up, calling it an example of feminism going off the rails and, like Dan McLaughlin, senior, calling it “the cultural trajectory of progressivism.” It clearly expresses this.'' National Review writer; tweeted at that time. Fox News devoted a portion of its “Fox & Friends” show to satirizing this.
Hudson realized this was an organized act by trolls and set out to fight back. She created her own Southern-ism hashtag, #YourSlipIsShowing, which she found particularly useful: criticizing people who she thinks are perfect representations of themselves.
She began aggregating trolls' posts under hashtags and encouraged others to do the same and block fake accounts. Her Twitter community took on that mission. That includes Black feminists and academics like Ainatha Crockett, who, as she told Slate in 2019, conducted her own research and discovered that #EndFathersDay is a hoax. 4chan is a shadowy community of right-wing web forums. A group of hate.
According to Hudson and others, there was little response on Twitter. Nevertheless, their actions were effective. #EndFathersDay went mostly silent for a few weeks, but fake accounts continued to pop up for years, and Hudson kept calling them out like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.
But it turns out #EndFathersDay wasn't just a joke. It was a well-organized disinformation campaign. As digital activist Bridget Todd, who interviewed Hudson on her podcast “No Girls on the Internet'' in 2020, said, this was a kind of test balloon for a campaign of election interference that began with tactics in 2016. As Senate hearings showed, it was by Russian operatives. In retrospect, Ms. Hudson's efforts provided an early and effective bulwark against misinformation that could threaten democracy.
“That should be verified,” Ms. Hudson told Slate. “But it's rather upsetting and alarming. No one wants to be right about how much real danger we're all in, even if we saw it coming.” It is.”
Hudson, a freelance writer who worked for a non-profit organization but focused on Twitter since 2014, died at the age of 46 on February 15 at an extended stay hotel in Portland, Oregon.
Her brother, Salifu Hudson, confirmed her death but said he did not know the cause. She reportedly had Crohn's disease and a respiratory illness. Her followers were informed in her post that she had been suffering from COVID-19 for a long time, was recently diagnosed with cancer, and that she had no money to pay for her treatment. Many people pitched in to help her.
Her followers said: frustration and anger Ms. Hudson said she was never paid by the tech companies that monitored her platform, that she was not properly recognized by academics and news outlets who cited #YourSlipIsShowing, and that she not receiving proper medical care.
Mickey Kendall, cultural critic and author of Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women the Movement Forgot (2020), said, “The world owes Fika more than it has given.'' I spoke on the phone. Kendall is one of many black feminists who have continued Hudson's mission and befriended her on Twitter (now called X).
“The world has a duty to Fika to ensure that something like this never happens to anyone again,” Kendall said. “Unfortunately, she exists in a long tradition of Black activist women who die in poverty, who die sick, alone, and afraid. Because we don't keep activists until they need something.” Because I love you.”
Syafika Amatullah Hudson was born on January 10, 1978 in Columbia, South Carolina. Her father, Caldwell Hudson, was a martial arts instructor and author. Her mother, Geraldine (Thompson) Hudson, was a computer engineer. The couple divorced in 1986, and Ms. Syafika grew up primarily in Florida with her mother and her older brother, where she attended the Palm Beach County School of the Arts, a magnet school.
Syafika earned her bachelor's degree in 2000 from Hobart College and William Smith College in Geneva, New York, majoring in African Studies and minoring in Political Science. After her graduation, she moved to New York City where she worked for various nonprofit organizations.
She was lonely since she came to this city for the first time. She has found a community on social media sites such as her blog and Twitter. She joined the company in 2009. (For her avatar, she chose the image of Edna Mode, the domineering fashion maven from “The Incredibles.”) And, like many black women on that platform, she was ridiculed. , I was harassed. She told Todd she had received rape and death threats.
In addition to his brother, Mr. Hudson is survived by his father and sisters Kari Newnan, Charity Jones and Mosina Hudson. Geraldine Hudson passed away in 2019.
During the final months of her life, Hudson posted about her declining health and fears that she would not be able to afford care and housing. She was unable to work due to her disability.
Her brother said she moved to Portland because the climate was suitable for respiratory illnesses. However, she was unable to secure her health insurance. Her doctors discovered that the painful fibroids she had were cancerous. She needed money for further biopsies and transport to the hospital. As always, her Twitter community also weighed in. She did not ask her family for help.
“She was very private and very proud,” her cousin Margaret Haynes said by phone, adding that she had spoken to Hudson in the weeks before her death. She said, “She told me, 'I'm fine.' If I need anything, you'll be the first to let me know.”
But on February 9, she told her followers: And it's raining. And I'm just trying not to drown. ”
February 7th was a tough day. Hudson felt dizzy and in pain, she wrote. She realized her own mortality and she posted about her decision to be single and have no children. She recalled a conversation she had with a member of her young family because, in her words, “she would be an aunt and not a mother.”
She died eight days later.
alain draquelier contributed to research.
