It's not a secret that race has been a huge issue in America for centuries. Looking back through history the white population has been reigning as the supreme race for hundreds of years and has led to the formation of racist thoughts to those of other races. The racial thoughts led to violent actions, which were eventually put to a stop in the 1960's with the Civil Rights Act. While some believe racism is a solved problem, Anna Holmes wrote an article showing how racism is not a solved problem and has recently been prevalent with the release of the movie The Hunger Games staring two African American actors. 

The reaction of the public was all over social media sites especially Twitter. The problem many Americans were tweeting about was the fact that two characters in the book The Hunger Games were cast for the movie as two African American actors when fans of the book thought they should've been white actors. Tweets concerning this critical situation were quite alarming and had people questioning if racism had gotten any better over the years. One man from Canada decided to draw more attention to the problem and also took to social media sites. He would screen shot a tweet dealing with the racism toward the actors and post the pictures of the tweets on Instagram. Realizing he needed a larger audience he decided to create a Tumblr account. This way more people could view the tweets and could then easily share them with friends where as Instagram was a more limited viewing audience and did not have the capability of sharing with friends (Holmes). Getting the issue out to the public is a main step in trying to solve the issue and switching from Instagram to Tumblr created more stakeholders. Once people become stakeholders in the situation they will try and find a solution to the problem, in this case ending racism. 

Some people believe that racism was put to an end when the Civil Rights of 1964 was signed. According to a poll by debate.com, 78% of Americans feel that racism is still a problem in America today and Anna Holmes' article is a perfect example how that is true ("Society Opinions."). By looking at that statistic the audience of the blog can be both the 78% of Americans that think racism is still a problem and the 22% of Americans who feel that racism is not a problem anymore. While both of these groups of people are the blog's audience, the blog serves a different purpose for the two different groups. For the 78% of Americans that think racism is not a problem anymore the blog's purpose is to reiterate their thoughts on racism. For the 22% of Americans who feel that racism is not a problem anymore the blog's purpose is to try and convince them that racism is still a problem.
The critical situation has several exigences. The main exigence is that the blog can only be viewed using the Internet. While technology is a main way of communication in today's society, 20% of Americans do not have access to the Internet and may not have seen the blog unless shown by friends (Wing). Another exigence of the situation is that no one in America publicly addressed the racist tweets until a man in another country brought attention to them. Thankfully a man who isn't even a citizen of the United States felt the need to step in and start a Tumblr page displaying the tweets and draw attention to the problem. The attention the blog created lead some tweets to be taken down but no further action was taken to end the problem of racism in America. 

Sure racism is not a violent problem today like it was in the 1960's however it is still a problem. All those tweets about the actors being African American instead of white is the perfect example how racism is still alive in America and I think turning to social media to stop the problem was a great start to a solution. Looking at the history that surrounds the problem of racism in America there needs to be a more permanent solution, which the article never addresses. One solution to this situation would be to make sure everyone in America is taught to be respectful of those that may be considered different. Racism thoughts are often times started simply because one is not educated on the different cultures. So by beginning education on different cultures at a young age it can help eliminate racism. 

Looking at the critical situation described in the article, the media, more specifically social media sites, played a major role- both as part of the solution and the problem. Obviously the media is an outlet for people to express their thoughts and it's not illegal to have a racist thought. But the racist thoughts expressed in the tweets could lead to violent or illegal activities if not stopped. All the racist tweets about how two characters in The Hunger Games movie were being played by African American actors instead of white actors were displayed all over the social media sites which could be seen by anyone. This is an example of a negative aspect of social media because the tweets more than likely influenced other Americans to have racist thoughts about the actors in The Hunger Games movie. 

Just as the media sites had a negative role in the situation, they also had a positive role. The media site Tumblr helped to get the attention of the American people and show them the racist things people were tweeting about. Once people knew about the tweets, many of the racist tweets were taken down off of Twitter, which was a small step at eliminating the spread of racism. By looking at the negative and positive roles social media sites, they can be seen as a double edge sword when dealing with the situation in the article. 

Through the exigences surrounding the critical situation described in Anna Holmes's article a lesson can be taken away- racism still exists. While the article brought attention to the situation, which is a step toward reaching a solution, it didn't address permanent steps to end the situation, which can start with educating children. Overall the article brought an important issue to the public's eye that created stakeholders who will in the future end racism in America for good.
