Racism on social media

Darius Swearegene Blog Post 4

 Lora Strey

Comp 101-12

“Some Thoughts On Mercy” Is a story about life as a minority and how racism still exist in today’s world. The story also shows that people can judge things without understanding situations. While I was reading this story I found multiple parts that I could relate to. I've been stopped randomly by officers of the law and have been asked to step out of the vehicle to be searched and randomly frisked. Racism isn't a thing of the past in still evident till this very day. Social media can be the perfect place for racism to rear its ugly head.

One question that I thought of while reading the article was “Does social media impact our thoughts on other races?” well the answer is yes. Social media is a place where opinions can be shared freely and some may be anonymous while others are public. This means that people are able to freely express themselves in a positive or negative manner. Many see this as an opportunity to spread hate.

Social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Yik Yak certainly impact the way think of other races. If we see our peers spreading hate speech others will be susceptible to the same things. Twitter allows those to spread opinions without filters. Twitter is arguable one of the most racist social media platforms. While Yik Yak is an anonymous app that lets people say as they please it also generates hate. Not only does Yik Yak in other areas have racist post but our very own school has had its fair share of racist post

Finally, we see that social media can’t impact the way you think of other races. Social media is a big place for hate toward other races. The slur Paki is used 1,170 times on a daily basis and coon is used 320 times a day. These statistics show that race is still an eminent issue and shows that social media can be a nice outlet to those who want to generate hateful speech. There is currently a PhD student from the University of Alberta looking into censoring racist tweets.

In conclusion social media can be a great outlet for those who want to spread hateful messages. It can be seen as free speech but when is that line crossed?. Even though I believe racism isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I believe social media racism can be minimized by getting filters on commonly used racial slurs.

Work Cited

Nathan Fung, The Gateway, PhD student looks to fight racism in social media October 08, 2014

Jamie Bartlett, Jeremny Reffin, Noelle Rumball, Sarah Williamson Anti social media - Racism on Twitter Date Accessed: October 08, 2014

•  The Huffington Post #Racism in 140 Characters TheHuffingtonPost.com March 10, 2014
• Date Accessed: October 09, 2014 Author: Nitya Rajan