Social Media And Hate Crime Essay

The topic of discrimination and hate crimes is something that has become more prevalent in our society today with the usage of social media than it has ever been before. It is not a concept that is unfamiliar to our generation. We grow up watching this happened in front of our eyes online. We hear about it in the news. We see it in our workplace. But why does it exist and where does it come from? This concept of discrimination and the resulting of hate crimes, the influence of social media on the issue at hand, what makes someone more or less susceptible to becoming a victim, and why does it feel as if the police are doing nothing about it are all key aspects to understanding this topic. Humans naturally categorize things. From a young age

Given that the virus has been presumed to have started in Asia, specifically China, people found it easy to point a finger. Individuals that have lived their entire lives in peace now found themselves victims due to something out of anybody's control. It was something to have perceived started on social media. Social media became a breeding ground for hate and xenophobia. They became triggers for individuals to gain power from the virtual support to go out and physically harm people. Both the social media and the in-person violence are hate crimes. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines hate crimes as “any various crimes when motivated by hostility to the victim as a member of a group” (“Hate crime,” 2023). In DeCook’s she exclaims how there's between being clear people had of the COVID-19 virus and the hate crimes online that came to be (DeCook, 2021). She states that “memes not only served as poorly concealed expressions of xenophobia and racism to reinforce white supremacist radical order, but the hate crimes increased along with the explosion of anti-Asian rhetoric on social media” (DeCook, 2021). People we're scared, white supremacists saw it as an opportunity to join together people that prior had little consideration against the Asian community to promote hate. And it worked. But hate crimes and discrimination are not new to COVID-19, neither are

In a study done by McCain analyzing hate crime victimization amongst immigrants he proved that “being an immigrant or a non-citizen, was associated with an increase in odds of being the victim of a hate crime” (McCann, 2022). I wish it is more complicated and had the ability to differentiate what makes one person more susceptible to hate crimes but it is truly so surface level. Its basis is on an individual's appearance. Nothing more. There are countless stories of people being randomly attacked by strangers just because of the way they look. If an individual has more defining factors proving their visually assumed nationality they're at risk (McCann, 2022). It is rudimentary and naive to hate someone on the basis of something so uncontrollable. And yet it continues to happen both online and in person. So why does it feel as if nothing it's done about