The Media Develops Racial Discrimination

Racial tension refers to the underlying or overt hostilities that exist between two or more ethnic groups. Words that are similar to racial tension are racism, racial hostility and racial unease. No matter which one of these words you are using, the problem at hand is still the same.

Influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. There are many influences in today’s society, especially with all the different technology we have.

The influences can be social media, movies, shows, celebrities, family, friends, and adults. Even though I only named a few, that does not mean that is all of the influences.

Social media is a huge platform to express your opinion or statement about anything. The posts can vary when it is containing racism. The post can be so disturbing as “Why did Obama’s great granddaddy cross the road ? Because my great granddaddy tugged his neck chain in that direction.

” – a post made by a Twitter user. Another post was a man confronting his neighbors for playing Spanish music on the fourth of July because the music was “disrespectful to the country”. The topics could range from being about historic events, privileges of other races, discrimination against color, and more. Social media has a lot to do with racism due to all the different anti-racial videos and post being shared numerous times. As people are sharing these things more and more people are getting affected, whether it is benefiting them or not.

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Movies and shows play a big role in increasing someone’s hatred toward another race. Topics of these movies or shows can range from autobiographies of historical people to the common problem the world is dealing with now. The emotions that are evolved from these

movies can be anger, astonishment, realization. Watching these shows and movies can change our opinions about the different subjects of racial tension. The problems dealing with racism can even be seen in kids movies. A good example is the native american stereotypes in the 1953 version of Peter Pan. The movie had a musical number called What Made the Red Man, Red?.

Family, friends, and adults are major influences because they are people you be around the most. They can be the people who try to convince you that people of a different race are not equal to you. They will tell you different racial slurs or put opinionated statements in your mind, about a specific race. You may even have friends of a different race, who has some type of opinion towards your own race. People may join in on racial injustice to fit in with people or to keep from getting the same treatment. They can make you believe stereotypes like “caucasian people smell like wet dog” , “every african american loves watermelon and chicken”, “all mexicans are immigrants”. When it all comes down to it, we all bleed the same. So why not be equal?

Examples of things on social media involving racism is the I’m Not Racist video on Youtube. The video really does break down the issue of racial tension. Post like “This kid is mexican why he is singing the national anthem” is a really good example of thing you experience on social media. I can name multiple movies, books, and shows discussing racial tension. For example, 12 years a slave, Black and White, The Hate U Give, The Birth of a Nation.

Africans and african americans have been facing racism for hundreds of years. Historians, on history.com, have estimated that 6 to 7 million slaves were imported to the New World during the 18th century. Harriet Tubman is a woman famously known for the underground railroad. This heroic woman saved anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 slaves escape the rigorous work and abuse of their slave owners. A man with the name of John Brown led a raid in October 16, 1859. The cause of the Civil War was the two different opinions between the union and the confederate states of america.

The union believed everyone was equal and that slavery should be abolished; The confederates thought otherwise. Well the battle was fought and the union won. Five days after the bloody Union victory at Antietam in September, he issued a preliminary emancipation proclamation; on January 1, 1863, he made it official that slaves within any State, or designated part of a State in rebellion,”shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” There were many amendments and laws were passed to make the africans even with the caucasians. Which led to start of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), who sought to disenfranchise blacks by using voter fraud and intimidation as well as extreme violence. To make matters worse, the Jim Crow laws were established in 1885. The laws first started with the segregation of schools. It was not until the 1900 that people of color were required to be separated from whites in railroad cars and depots, hotels, theatres, restaurants, barber shops, and other establishments. The 1896-97 Supreme Court established the separate-but-equal rule. The doctrine would thereafter be used for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. In 1909 NAACP was founded.

The goals of this new organization was to abolish all the forced segregation, the enforcements of the 14th and 15th Amendments, equal education for blacks and whites and complete enfranchisement of all black men. Despite all the good news that was happening in the black community, Emmett Till was a 14 year old black boy from Chicago who was lynched for allegedly whistling and making flirtatious remarks to a white woman behind the counter. Only just a few years ago, the woman came clean and said the Emmett was innocent and did not do it. In Montgomery, Alabama a woman named Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give her seat up to a caucasian male. She was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation ordinances. This historical moment led to boycott from the city’s municipal bus company.

African Americans weren’t the only people who experienced racism. Every race in the world has felt some type of hate towards them because of their culture, what country they are from, or their background. Native Americans were the indigenous people of the “New World”. They discovered America by crossing the Bering Strait following the now extinct mammoths. Once the Europeans “discovered” America, they wanted to claim the country as their own. As of today they are put on reserves in the country they discovered. The indigenous people believed in sharing with the people because peace was their main goal. They offered them presents as a welcoming gift, but they were betrayed by Europeans.

The Europeans gave them smallpox, forced them to work for them. According to the Ferris.edu, throughout U. S. history, Euro-Americans committed countless acts of violence against Native people. Such acts include extermination or genocide, theft of Indian lands and resources, captivity and enslavement, forced removals from homelands, and schooling aimed at destroying Native cultures. Because Europeans and Euro-Americans colonists threatened Native peoples, many resisted mightily to defend their families and homelands. The ongoing perception of Indians as dangerous contributes to negative expectations, interactions, and consequences. Thus, Indians are incarcerated at high rates, encounter discrimination and hate crimes, and experience other negative impacts. Stereotyped Indian violence also leads non-Indians to fear Native people.

My last race to mention that faced racism is the caucasians. Yes I know they might have caused a lot of the racial tension but you cannot blame a whole race for something. We just cannot go blaming them for the things their ancestors did. The Irish Times’ article made some valid points about things said about caucasian people; so I put a snippet of it on here. A number of articles by non-white people were articulating just what it is about white people which is so annoying. This included: taking offence too easily, being too literal about everything, over articulating when angry, being humourless and pedantic, talking all the way through dinner, priding themselves on knowing obscure facts, being vegan, needlessly using Latin phrases, being condescending and improperly using slang terms.

Racism doesn’t have a color or nationality; it can happen to anybody. As sad as it is racism has been apart of world history for hundreds of years. Be aware of the different influences in your life; they could change your point of view on a race. Remember the golden rule: treat others how you would want to be treated.