As I sat by my computer thinking about a topic to share with the class, I tried to concentrate on facets of the world that we all can relate to in some way, something that is 'relatable' to the college student. In a world encompassed by the smart phone, we all typically have exposure to one component of technology every single day: social media. Social media can be used to get in touch with friends, share opinions, read news articles, post pictures, you name it. Many may argue that there are countless beneficial aspects to social media and that it serves as a healthy way for people to interact with one another. However, a downfall to many social media websites is the independence that people are given to say whatever comes to mind, regardless of who it may be targeting. In an article published by the Huffington Post, author Nitya Rajan explains this phenomenon.
Rajan writes that according to a study conducted by a UK Think Tank, an organization that researches social policy, there are 10,000 tweets on Twitter every single day that contain some type of racial slur. "White Boy' is the most used racial slur, "Paki" the second, and "Whitey" the third. The problem with posting racist remarks on websites such as Facebook and Twitter is that racism is generally detected through context. In other words, it is generally difficult to figure out if someone is intentionally being racist if you can't hear the way in which they are saying it.
I feel as though we all experience this every once in a while. How many times have you received a text or email from someone that comes off as rude or makes it seem as though the person is angry with you, when in reality they really were not. The reason for this is because there is no context. It is sometimes difficult to tell how someone is intending to sound through text because you simply cannot hear the tone by which it is being communicated.
Rajan goes on to explain that making a racist remark over social media is much different than saying it to someones face in a social setting. The power that is given to social media users is often taken advantage of, especially when someone may be expressing something inappropriate or racist. This is a very interesting idea because of those 10,000 racist tweets, about 70 percent are used in a non-derogatory fashion. Conversational protocol typically acts as a strong disincentive for racist comments in normal social settings. However, this is not the case with many social media circumstances. Seeing as people can literally 'hide behind their screens,' social media serves as the perfect balance between spreading opinions and remaining 'safe.'
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| This post by a Facebook user is just one of many examples of racism on social media websites. This is the post of a news article that headlines president Obama sending troops into West Africa with a ill-mannered caption. Another Facebook user commented on the post by stating that since Obama is black, we should send him to West Africa by himself to take care of other people of his race, and not to put any white soldiers in danger. This is just a small example of someone 'hiding behind the screen.' This comment would be much more difficult to make standing face-to-face with someone who is black. |
Logan Smith, creator of the twitter account, @YesYoureRacist, set out on a mission to help expose racist tweets on twitter in an attempt to show users that racism is still prevalent, especially in social media. His goal is to make people aware of their intended or unintended crude comments and show that they can be harmful to every twitter user that comes across the post. After gathering a large number of followers to his account, Smith exposes these offensive tweets by 'retweeting' them, making them then visible to all 48 thousand of his followers to view and comment on. Smith found himself especially busy during last years super bowl, where he retweeted hundreds of controversial, racist tweets about commercials during the broadcast. Two commercials in particular during the super bowl sparked the highest number of offensive tweets exposed by Smith. Below are links to a Coca Cola and a Cheerios commercial. Following the videos are tweets from two different users responding to the commercials that Smith retweeted. WARNING- the language used in the tweets are vulgar and may be viewed as offensive.
One of the major themes that Smith finds in his work is that although the trend seems to lean towards whites believing they are the dominant race, people from all different kinds of race and ethnicity stand by members of their own racial/ethnic group in terms of argument. This phenomenon reminded me of the discussion that we had last week in class about how racial/ethnic groups stand in terms of opinion and 'brotherhood.' Do different groups use prejudice against one another as a result of fear be becoming a less-dominant race or can this be explained by Bonilla-Silva's 'naturalization' from Frame 2? In this frame Bonilla-Silva would explain these issues by simply saying that they are natural to occur. Or, is it possible that it can be explained through Frame 3 in which Bonilla-Silva talked about cultural racism and how people may behave this way based on a set of stereotypes? It is difficult to say which is most accurate, but I feel as though you can take a piece of all three of these ideas to help explain the danger that social media is allowing into our everyday lives. In general, I think it is easy to say that the majority of racial/ethnic groups stick by each others side, even when there is no racism. Naturally, everyone is attracted to the thought of belonging which for many is only available to them through there racial/ethnic backgrounds.
So, the question that I have for you all is as follows: is social media negatively affecting and possibly delaying the process of someday creating a non-discriminatory world?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nitya-rajan/racism-in-140-characters_b_4922343.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-davis/yesyoureracist-we-can-do-_b_4762648.html
I really thought this post was interesting especially because this is part of my topic for the research project. I believe that many people say these things on social media because in their heads they are not being racist. I believe that many young people think that being racist is having a "slave" or doing something very very awful but saying something to them on social media "doesn't go over board to becoming racist" when in actuality it does. I am also surprised that the most racist word used through social media is white boy. I also believe and agree that it is extremely hard to tell if someone is being racist on social media because you can not hear the tone one is using when saying these statements.
ReplyDeleteWow, that first tweet. Contrary to what that girl claims, her statement was a racist and is backed up with no substance. I would like to also say the reason why the White House is called the White House is because it was painted white. There is more background history to it, but it has been called that by the people since the War of 1812 and was officially named the White House in 1901 by Teddy Roosevelt. I'm not here to attack that girl, though all she had to do was go on google, but I'm still shocked by the responses people have made not only about Obama and the advertisements. In response to the question at the end, I feel like it can go both ways. Social media has helped raise awareness and group together people for different causes, but at the same time it has allowed people to hide behind their technology and attack people that may look and act differently from them.
ReplyDeleteI have encountered things like this first hand in my town. As I have mentioned before, West Islip is over 95% white, therefore people think that race is a joke. One boy in my school, right before the elections, decided to make a racist tweet about Obama before his second term and his tweet was featured on the headlines of online newspapers for weeks. It was a disgrace to our school because it made the entire school and town look as if we did not understand the significance of race. Granted I don't think a lot of these sheltered people I went to school with understood at all but for the most part, my school is full of very well educated people and is a reputable school. To have something like this plastered everywhere with our name attached to it was disgraceful...even more so because one of the few African American people in the school was out principal who was the one dealing with the entire matter. It is just disgusting how ignorant people can be when there is a computer screen saving them from the confrontation.
ReplyDeleteSocial media is such an untamable beast. It's nearly impossible to censor something that has such a massive community. Combined with freedom of speech, social media is a powerful and sometimes dangerous thing. As you mentioned in your post, sometimes people say things on social media that is intended to mean one thing but can be misinterpreted to mean something totally different. A post that was intended to be a joke aimed towards a few of your friends can be taken out of context by any random person and be seen as extremely offensive.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to see these questions brought up because whether we want it or not social media is one of the most important parts of our generation. It is how we get our information and it is how we make a name for ourselves. Also it is how we interact with our colleagues who live far away. Race on these medias are difficult to portray accurately but some blatant attacks aren't beneficial to anyone, reader or writer.
ReplyDeleteThis was something I was thinking about the other day. I live in a rural area of northeastern CT and while there's a lot that I love, the general vibe of the town is somewhat racially skewed. Not a single person from there that I'm friends with on Facebook posted about the shooting of Michael Brown, the protests etc. It wasn't until his lack of indict and the consequent, more aggressive and public protests and riots that people started saying anything. And then, it was a matter of 'Why are they destroying their own city?' 'A white guy was shot by police and there are no riots for him', etc. None of the people in question would say they are racist; in fact, they would be offended to be accused of racism. But the things they posted and said indicated certain, generally unconscious, racial prejudices and lack of understanding. It just goes to show that this sort of thing is pretty dynamic and diverse.
ReplyDelete