Racism And Social Media

Black Lives Matter movement spread awareness through protesting, petitioning, writing formal letters to local police departments and the District Attorney of the United States. However social media is what helped draw attention to the ongoing violence against the black people. Hashtags, Instagram photos, and videos drew a broad and nonverbal attention to police wrongdoings. Social media helped as it makes up effective communities by uniting those that support the social action. “Social media keeps advocates and allies informed, as well as create a quick and easy vehicle through which to keep activists informed and how social media creates verbal opportunities for a solid change”. (Langford, Montené, 2015).

Lastly, social media has also contributed the neglection of solving racist actions. Social media has given individuals an opportunity to say things, that would never be sayed in person because of a fear of persecution. For example in the article, “Jeremy Lin Takes Kenyon Martin Jabs on Hair, Race in Stride,” Kenyon Martin posted on social media that “ Lin’s decision to wear dreadlocks is an indication that he wants to be black.” Martin would have probably never proclaimed this statement to Lin in person, but since he was protected by the internet he felt more comfortable posting it.

Social Media has become a huge part of our lives. It is a way to connect to those far away, or to share things that we find interesting or exciting and can be a very personal presentation of who we are. But in both positive and negative ways we can share our opinions and our view on certain events in the world. These can lead to rallies, protests, uprisings or in some cases revolution, the internet has become one of the most influential forces in this world and a large part of that is due to social media. In the case of the Michael Brown shooting, social media focused on the positive and negative relationships between minorities and cops in the United States of America. Sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Vine were all used to show

In Stephen’s article about Black Lives Matter and social media he shows how social media is a key part of

While waiting for her plane at John F Kennedy airport, Justine Sacco tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”(Ronson 1). She boarded the plane checking her phone every few seconds waiting for a response, nothing. It was an 11 hour flight to where she was going in Africa, so she decided that she would sleep. When she arrived in Cape Town airport Sacco turned on her phone to see the thousands of hateful responses to her tweet. Sacco’s twitter page had became a horror show, with one twitter user responding “How did @Justine-Sacco get a PR job?! Her level of racist ignorance belongs on Fox News. #AIDS can affect anyone!” (Ronson 2). During that 11-hour flight she had became the No. 1 trend

Currently, racism is still an issue in the United States but the press has helped bring awareness to the issue. For example, there are multiple blogs on how the world is still segregated even though there are no laws to support it. With the rise Internet, anyone is able to blog about their opinion on something or bring attention to a problem that is not being covered in the media. According to the book Blog! by David Kline and Dan Burstein, the average writer is over forty, which means there is not a lot of new and fresh ideas brought to the table for newspapers and magazines (373 Kline and Burstein). However, with the new and upcoming trend of blogging there are a variety of opinions and ideas. Also, social networking has enabled people to communicate faster and it’s harder for the government or press to hide certain information from the public in order for our countries reputation to be protected. In respect to racism and how the media reports on it, our country still has a long way to go but has come far.

Social media’s prevalence is undeniable. From raising awareness to calling people to action, outlets like Facebook and Twitter have also become powerful tools for political and social revolutions. In the African American community, however, the effectiveness of online activism ranges from little to none. Issues dealing with black people are, more often than not, popular on social networking sites for a short amount of time and afterwards they tragically fade into obscurity. Many supporters of online movements rarely venture into

Nowadays, the media has a major influence in how we communicate and interact with others, although it is not always positive. Since racism is a recurring experience that we face practically almost everyday, some people have become desensitized but that doesn’t mean that racism has become less of a problem. There are negative effects caused by racism. There are serious mental, emotional, and physical health damages to those who suffer from racism. Not only that, discrimination and inequality is present in workfields. People also feel less safe because the police are more likely to target minority groups. Racism has a larger effect than most people seem to

Word choice is one way this article is ineffective, but so is the misusage of quotes. These quotes do not relate to anything that is said in the text and are misplaced in the text. On page twenty-two of “Black Tweets Matter” it states, “These were conversations that we were having with each other, over the phone or in the living room or at the bar.” In this portion of the article the author is talking about racist events that had occurred and how people were reacting to these events on social media with the use of hashtags. The author did not interview anyone in this portion of the article, which makes this quote irrelevant because we do not know who is saying it. It could be something the author put in for effect, or someone could have actually said it; however, people reading will not know that because the author doesn’t state who said

Black Tweets matter, published through the Smithsonian, is an article about racial awareness in social media and, how much of an impact social networking can be crucial to cultural expression. Back in 2013, a female writer by the name of Alicia Garza had taken to Facebook, a social communication platform, to express herself in the George Zimmerman case and his recent acquitting. Zimmerman, whom at the time was being charged in the murder of Trayvon Martin, a young African- American youth, when a Florida jury dropped all charges against him. Expressing her love for her people and community Alicia and her friends sparked the now on growing movement "#Blacklivesmatter".

In today’s society when white privilege is discussed one might think of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), white supremacy, Black Lives Matter Movement, and maybe even presidential hopeful Donald Trump. The idea of this ingrained privilege that was once overt and now presents itself more subtly seems absurd. Many people, no matter their race or ethnicity, do not see this privilege that others hold. Whether it is ignorance or they are oblivious depends on the individual, but looking at statistics on crime, education, employment, and even representation in the media it is clear that there is an imbalance. What can change this? An honest conversation about race, comfort zone aside, which questions this privilege and its implications. We, as a society, cannot deny that one group has the upper hand and if we [society] continue to do so there will not be equally amongst races and ethnicities. The beliefs and attitudes about White Privilege are negative or nonexistent on social media platforms.

Blogging impacts the topic of racism because of the era we live in where everyone wants to write about their events in life. A recent movement formed called “Black Lives Matter” due to African-Americans believing that their lives do no matter to police officers for example. The Tumblr blog uses the hash tag to spread the word which can be used on various blogs across other platforms which is #BlackLivesMatter. The movement formed in call and response to black lives taken by white police officers. The blog states, “Call to action and a response to ways in which our lives have been de-valued.” It ask African-Americans to submit post about the meaning means to them, how racism has impacted their lives and what are they going to do to ensure black

Today, I’m willing to post more than a status to make a difference; I choose to take a stand.

I say that because after hearing the name Woodrow Wilson, I wouldn’t have automatically linked that to the subject of racism and how wrong it was to honor him in a country of all different races. What this article has made my question is, how much more don’t I know about the issue of racism? Are there anymore racial innuendos displayed in the public? Despite the fact that this piece focuses on racist and non-racist white American leaders in previous centuries, everyone has to speculate how much more improved this issue would be without social media. Even back then, there were white men that were against racism against African Americans despite the time period. The fact that we have so much more knowledge on the matter, I would have thought we would be more accepting by

First, Zimmerman argues that successful platforms, without fail, turn into publications, such as Facebook and Twitter. Declaring that these successful platforms should accept responsibility for hate speech on their sites; rightfully so, the more eyes seeing the publications means the more influence upon those viewers. Claiming that Twitter could monitor what is published on its sight to be a better platform, even thought they are not legally forced to care, means twitter needs more overseers. Whether or not this monitoring is high up on Twitter’s priority list, most people would agree that morally, overseeing the publications would be a site improvement. Using the metaphor of a megaphone handed to society as Twitter’s