For as long as we can remember race has been a controversial issue in the world that we live in. Even though race is an imaginary constraint that we as humans have created, it seems that it has become something that has embedded itself in the back of our minds. In the technological age that we live in today, racial stereotypes and profiles have become a prevailing issue in the media that we use and see every day. It has come to my attention that the media, more specifically the news and social media, tend to adhere to these made up constraints of race that we have become so accustomed to. Through this paper, I hope to give you a better understanding of how this happens and to better your knowledge of how we, together, can prevent this issue from becoming any worst.

It's no secret that racism has become quite a controversial topic, especially with the rise in race based crimes, like the Trayvon Martin, Rodney King, Eric Garner and most recently the Cedrick Chatman case. In these three cases, they all had some similarities, but it seems that the similarity that should be most carefully examined is the fact that each one of these men were killed by police. Yes, the very people that we look up to to protect our freedom and to protect our well being are the ones that are killing the people just like you and I. However, it should be addressed that these men weren't killed specifically due to the reason that they were African-American, they were killed because in our society today, there are implications that we automatically assume of someone solely based upon their skin tone. Except for the Eric Garner case, all of these other men were shot first, instead of being hit with a stun gun or any other type of weapon that would allow the police to have an advantage over the unarmed men. In the Rodney King case, the police that were involved in the shooting commented saying that they felt "threatened for their life" and that was the reason they gave on why they shot King and killed him. This is just one example of how the media that we see today adheres to racial profiles and stereotypes. The news media that we see today does this every day and we are not aware of this because it has become an unconscious, deep rooted belief that persons of an ethnic descent are more dangerous than those who are not. The news that we witness and see every day, typically, cover stories that involve violence, drug related, and other anti-social behaviors when they contain an African American person or a person of any various minority groups acting out these crimes. Due to seeing this every day, we have unconsciously rooted this belief within ourselves and there was nothing we could do to stop it. In 2002, a study was conducted in Orlando, Florida that found that one out of every eight African Americans and one out of every four Hispanic Americans appeared on the news as a suspect of a crime on a news station. In retrospect, another study was conducted in New York that proved that while the majority of the crimes committed are by Caucasian persons, more than half of the stories covered in the news were ones that involved an African American acting out the crimes. This proves that this happens, and due to the fact that we continuously see it happening, we have all begun to believe it.  However, it's not just the news that are adhering to these racial profiles, social media has also begun to allow us to justify racism.

In Massachusetts, Mrs. Owusu is a teacher in the Boston area and one day was presented with a question by one of her middle school aged students. The student asked her, "What am I?" At first, Mrs. Owusu was confused and asked the student what she meant by the question. Well, she said, my mother is white and my father is black and I see on the internet that black people should act a certain way and white people have a completely different way that they should act, so how am I supposed to act? In the technological age that we live in today, kids are beginning to familiarize themselves with ideas and problems at a far younger age than they should. Like Mrs. Owusu's student, racial profiles and stereotypes are making their way in to the minds of our youth and has begun to corrupt them at a younger age. It has also come to my attention that social media sites, such as Twitter and Instagram and even Facebook, allow people to implement racial stereotypes as a joke and while we think it to be funny at the time, begin to realize that we are believing what they are trying to say. We need to realize these problems on the internet and instead of not addressing the situation, we need to speak out against these racist post. Because like I said earlier, kids are starting to use technology at a very young age now, which means that they are beginning to get on social media sites, like twitter and Instagram, at a young age. As a kid, our brains are not fully developed and when they see these types of "racial post" on social media they are not aware of the negative effects that come from constantly seeing this. As they continue to see it, they start to believe it and when they start to believe it, they begin to fear it. Which in return, leads to the killing of innocent men, like Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and Rodney King. Social media also helps to spread these racist beliefs that are unconsciously embedded in our minds. In 2012, riots occurred at the University of Mississippi in an effort to backlash at the African American community on campus. These students were able to gather a substantial amount of other students to protest and riot against these African Americans that were on campus. It seems that while racism is prevalent all over the world, here in America we seem to see it a lot here in the South. In another example, Dylann Roof, who was the suspect who killed nine innocent African Americans at the Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston, South Carolina, had a blog website in which contained pictures of him praising the Confederate flag and also a 2500 word manifesto that expressed his hatred of the black community. Racism is everywhere and anywhere, but especially on the internet on social media sites do we see how common it is in our society today. Here in the United States, racism has become a very controversial topic, even though we are moving in the direction to a society that is more accepting of people and groups that are, typically, not the norm in our society now. Yet, racism is everywhere and it is just as bad there as it is here.

In Saudi Arabia, laborers are typically from their neighboring countries of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, etc. and these laborers are living in terrible working conditions and treated very poorly. In South Africa, depending on your race, the rates in which you receive products and goods varies, which is extremely sad to see given all of the efforts that Nelson Mandela gave in order to end racism in his country. In Australia, there is a heavy amount of Muslim youths being raised in Australia. Yet, Australians are trying their hardest to frame these Muslim teenagers as terrorists, which is something that has become quite a topic here in America. With the presidential election coming up, there has been a certain candidate that has gotten a rise out of people by talking about getting rid of every single illegal immigrant in our country, and making it impossible for any foreigners to come to our country. In this day in age, we should not be opposed to these people coming in, but welcoming them with open arms. By talking so badly about these people of various ethnic backgrounds in this manner, this candidate is simply adhering to these made up racial stereotypes and profiles. And due to the digital age that we live in, people are continuously seeing these racist beliefs and are starting to believe every word that is said about the topic. If we continue to allow people to believe these made up constraints, in what way we will be different than any terrorist group or worst, Hitler and Nazi Germany? 

Just like in today's society, racism has been a topic of discussion for as long as we can all remember.  We saw it growing up when talking about how we came to the New World and removed the indigenous people off of their rightful land and we saw it again when we took Africans from their home and brought them here to be slaves. Yet, we've seen it all over the world and it is still alive and well today. Every day we are faced with a new situation where race is the sole reason as to why a crime has occurred. However, there is some speculation as to why we see this topic coming up so frequently in today's news. Just recently, a grandmother by the name of Peggy Hubbard spoke out against the "Black Lives Matter" movement and what it really meant to her. Hubbard brought up the recent story of a 9-year-old Ferguson, Missouri, girl who was fatally struck by a bullet in her mother's bedroom while doing her homework. She pointed out that this girl's story was never mentioned in the world wide news, yet when a young black male was gunned down after pointing a gun at police officers, his story made country wide news with the justification that he was killed solely because he was African American. She spoke out against the situation commenting that this front for the "Black Lives Matter" movement is to support the protesting of  the death of a "thug, a criminal" instead of the young girl. As Hubbard perfectly stated, the police force are not out here for "games" and if you shoot at them, they are going to shoot right back because just like everyone, their lives matter, too. I believe that while the "Black Lives Matter" movement is something that needs to stay because it has the right motives, in some instances it has failed to back the right justification of it's worth. Like Mrs. Hubbard pointed out, this movement needs to protest in instances where it should be, which is when an innocent by stander is killed for no reason at all. 

Through history, we can see that racism has been a topic of controversy for as long we have been taught. Today, we are living in a day in age where racial profiling and stereotypes have been unconsciously embedded in our minds and it is something that we must learn to fight. While the news and social media allow a front to promote racism, we can also use it to prevent it. There are some people who are employed by the news media that have come together to address this problem and are working hard to make their efforts known. They are employing more ethnic news anchors and covering more stories that show that, despite the belief, white Americans are the ones who are more frequently committing crimes. Also, when the riots at the University of Mississippi were taking place, a group of students were using to social media to fight racial stereotypes and prevent the riots from taking place. These are small steps but if we all come together and work to fight this issue, we can eventually cut the amount of which we see racial profiles and stereotypes on various media outlets. 

I hope and pray that each and every one of you reading this paper will come to the agreement that racism has worked itself into our technological age that we are living in today. Through the news and social media, we are presented everyday with stereotypes and prejudices of people of minority groups and we should work every day to prevent this from happening any more than it should. The next time you are on a social media site, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., speak up. The next time you are watching the news and you see a minority figure being targeted for a crime, change the channel. You do not owe these racist views any of your time and efforts. It pains me to say it, but racism is a made up idea that we have created and it is us that have allowed it to become so prevalent in our society today. Here in the United States and everywhere in the world, racism is being implanted in our minds. However, I believe in the human race. I believe in the spirit of the human soul. I believe we are all the same, we have just allowed ourselves to think otherwise. I believe we all have the power to put an end to this unjust world we live in today. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated," The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood". With this I hope you will realize the problematic form of oppression that we have created with the media that we have been accustomed to and I hope that you will exalt all your efforts to fight this good fight. Eventually, it will be too late.

