Racism On Social Media

“The internet is not the post-racial utopia its creators had envisioned”(Nathaniel A. Hunter). Social media has become an uprising global phenomenon and has become an essential part of modern society. It is a place where people are allowed to speak their mind freely, usually, at no cost. Though social media is used to speak freely, the things being posted are not always positive or encouraging. The expansion of social media comes with negative attributions, such as the spread of racial discrimination. Racism is a discrimination towards people based on their race or ethnicity. It has been a worldwide problem in history and it continues to spread throughout the years. Racism is something that is taught, nobody is born racist. People learn

According to Christopher Espinal, “Racism is a “trend” on social media; despite our best interests, we may even be contributing to it ourselves. It seems that “ironic” racism is all the rave on social media platforms. People tend to believe words do not offend people even if it’s joking around. We use not only words but pictures, whether it be of another or of ourselves that gives our or another’s race a bad public image”(A Look Through the Cyber Eye: An Analysis of Racism on Social Media Platforms,6). Racism is everywhere on social media, even as simple as just the topic circulating around. People use social media everyday and post things that are on their mind or pictures of something they are doing. This can be related to their ethnicity and what they like to engage in. Many different opinions and impressions can come from what is posted depending on a person’s perspective. Someone can get insulted by what you have posted and you might not have thought that it was harmful in any way. This simple action could lead to the spread of racism even if those were not your intentions. Many things get misinterpreted on social media and can have a leading result of the opposite of your

Many people argue that social media does not spread racism. According to Bijan Stephan, “ Social media could serve as a source of live, raw information. It could summon people to the streets and coordinate their movements in real time. And it could swiftly push back against spurious media narratives with the force of a few thousand retweets”(Social Media Helps Black Lives Matter Fight the Power,10). Black Lives Matter is a movement in the African-American community that stands against violent and systematic racism toward black people. This quote shows that social media can be used to show the cruel acts that are practiced on black people. This would motivate people to take a stance against the violence and stand up for black people’s equality. Social media would be a good way to keep this movement in tact by spreading it around the world and influencing people to take action and matter into their own hands. If social media is being used to show these cruel acts people would view the problem in a different perspective and hopefully end racism. What this argument does not take into account is that social media misinterprets things and can negatively spread these videos instead of it’s actual purpose. These videos of violent acts can be spread and still have negative comments about African-American people beyond the racial hate. This movement can endanger black lives because they are watching how they are mistreated and nothing is being done. This can provoke people to cause