Black Twitter: A virtual community ready to hashtag out a response to cultural issues

Black Twitter is part cultural force, cudgel, entertainment and refuge. It is its own society within Twitter, replete with inside jokes, slang and rules, centered on the interests of young blacks online -- almost a quarter of all black Internet users are on Twitter.

There’s no password. The only entry fee is knowledge. If you’ve spent time steeped in black culture, whether at a historically black college or university or in the company of friends or family, you will probably understand the references on Black Twitter. You can observe its power and impact in the witty, sharply worded rebukes that haunt public figures when they do or say something stupid, especially if it’s racially insensitive.