Racism evident behind some US social media

[Blue_Tires]

In the decades since the civil rights movement helped end segregation in the US, openly racist language has largely disappeared from public discourse.

Yet the re-election of America's first black president on November 6 sparked an ugly outburst by some students at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Racial slurs initially made in posts on Twitter and Facebook were soon repeated at an impromptu anti-Obama protest where campaign posters were also burned. Meanwhile rumours of a riot on campus spread on social media.

Researchers say the incident has highlighted how some people are more prepared to voice racist views online than in person. And how social media can be used to mobilise people who share those views very quickly.

Social media was also used to bring together hundreds of students for a candlelit vigil the following night. The university authorities said the behaviour of a small minority had shamed the reputation of Ole Miss.

The BBC's Matt Danzico reports.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20500031

[Dooby]

1. Yes.. Social Media and the Internet brings out more racism in people

People feel more emboldened on the internet so yes you see more racism. However, the racism I often see on YouTube and other sites is alarming. People so casually use the "N" word and there seems to be quite a bit of hostility towards black people still. This should be a wakeup call to blacks that just because people don't scream the "N" word at them openly like they use to a lot of that sentiment is still there. BTW, I am black and live in Dallas, TX. I have been called the "N" word several times in my life. Once by a white boss (to my face), once by a white guy I attended high school with (and he referred to all of the blacks at the highschool as the N word) and several times when I worked in retail here in Dallas by white customers who would come into the store to buy things. Or they would say Monkey, or something similar.

This is very unfortunate but it is what it is.

[hrmjustin]

2. Welcome to DU!

[John2]

3. You are

from Texas and that article focuses on Mississippi. That is the state that had only 11 percent whites voted for President Obama and 96 percent Blacks voted for him. In 2008, that was the same case. I think this goes deeper and younger generations in those states pick it up from their parents whom were probably alive during the Civil Rights Era. It could go back to further Generations to Reconstruction and the Civil War in the South. So I really think this goes back through Generations and the revisionist history taught by some white Southerners. I don't think they got over their white supremacist ideas, much like many in Nazi Germany went through a re condition period. There are some people probably living today got away with lynchings too. I don't think, those sentiments just disappeared after the 1970s. They are just dormant, because people are in self denial, they exist.

I'm Black too and grew up in North Carolina. The last time I was called a nigger in North Carolina was during the first integration of schools in North Carolina. I remember, there was a lot of fighting between students during that first day of school. The situation got better, as younger people interacted socially with each other. Kids began ned to reject the racism, their parents put on them. They realized that Blacks were just people like them. I have not been called a nigger in North Carolina since or people kept those thoughts to themselves. That is not to say, that I have heard about open instances of racism in North Carolina, but it is rare and people are ostracized on it now.

[6502]

4. I used to see this a lot of Slashdot...

... at first it was just the odd post.

Then it was at least a post a day.

And finally it as a torrent of racist posts every day.

The site stopped being a tech site... I totally had to stop going there to keep my sanity.

Now, I don't even think it's a tech site.
It's just a bunch of --- I'm not sure --- "gee-whiz" types with no intellectual depth.

[jade3000]

6. Striking statistic

It's scary that only 11% voted for Obama. Sadly, racism handed down from parents is intimately tied up in the current trajectory of the Republican Party.

[yeswehavenobananas]

5. Okay, gotcha...And?

It is what it is... There are many prejudices on this plane: racism, sexism, homophobia, fat-phobia, unattractiveness-ism, age-ism.

That's why we're here, is it not? Unless you don't believe in a Creator, I 'spose. Unless you think it's a random, chaotic place. But if you DO believe in Divinity, then this place cannot be anything other than a place of illusion. And part of that illusion is judging others based upon externals.

How does this help you and others to realize that behind your back, some people are harboring negative thoughts about your race? You cannot control how evolved another person is, can you? You have to be able to not take it personally and let. it. go.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. judgment is one thing . . .

When it turns to racism - which is SYSTEMIC and man made - then the Constitution shatters your divine 'god' to pieces.

[live your bliss]

9. The Constitution is not the end-all, be-all...

Funny how some atheists scoff at God but worship the Constitution. If the Constitution was perfect, there would be no amendments to it, right?

Unless you disagree with that women-voting thingie...

[JustAnotherGen]

10. I'm not an atheist

I'm a member in good standing of the Unitarian Church. I've actually been to the church in Braintree Mass . . . the one John Adams belonged to and his father in law was pastor of.


I'm not a Unitarian Universalist - I'm a Unitarian of the Arian (Arius) variety. I was raised a Baptist (taught Sunday school in my 20's) and attended both Catholic High School and University.

Roll your eyes again - because you are making a born Again type Christian argument to a member in good standing (running this year's Christmas pageant - the high holy day of UNITARIANS equal to YOUR Easter) of a Church that when we look only at Judeo-Christian beliefs . . . believes JC was a Jew, a Human Being, and we outright reject the concept of a 'trinity'. I believe that everyone including you has a right to believe what you want, when you want, or what you DON'T want. But don't accuse me - who looks down on the concept of a Virgin Birth, Trinity and JC have to be tortured by Romans, murdered by the Romans, then rising from the dead (Sol Invictus anyone?) as silly - because it should be enough for everyone that professes to believe in his words and THE WAY that he was born and walked this earth.

What else would you like to challenge me on?

How about the bible being used by your predecessors to push and uphold both slavery and Jim Crow - that the black man/woman was sub human and should be happy to be slaves?

My turn - Oh dear Pharoah - let my people go.

We have a separation of our beliefs - yours are probably Christian. Forgive if me if I'm offending you with that tag - but in my experience those tend to be the first people that scream ATHEIST at any idea that NO religions have ANY place in matters of the state.


So you go on over there and read anything other than the words of JC in the New Testament. Bludgeon people with those words. Over here? I'm reading JC's words only. That was the only authority as everyone of his time and place kept saying he was the son of God. Oh - and a Christmas Carol - brilliant book by a Unitarian. Oh! Oh! Or how the Unitarians crammed Christmas down the throats of America!

Then when I leave Church - I'm reading my Constitution. And my Bill of Rights. And my Declaration of Independence.

Because those are the ONLY testaments I want brought up in the Secular world. As my husband would say (he's from Italy) - Capice?

Leave the bible out of it. It's offensive to many atheists to bludgeon them with it. Not to mention people who are not Christians at all . . .

[there_is_no_spoon]

7. How's that working out for you...

being lied to your entire life?

If I was told my whole life that a group of people are inferior (and by extension, I'm superior) and yet, see one of them and then he's ruling over me and my family... I might be moved to act out, too.

Cognitive dissonance must be shattering a whole a lot of folk's wicked perceptions.

They think social media provides a safe outlet for that rage.

[Spryguy]

11. This is why...

this country needs to follow the lines of Europe and have National Hate Speech legislation. Anyone who uses hate speech online should fined and/or jailed!!!!!! That would quickly curtail that crap!