Well Informed 2.0: Race Baiting

Simply by googling "race baiting" you get the exact definition of the term. It is the act of using racially derisive language, actions, or other forms of communication in order to anger or intimidate or coerce. After researching more details and social media platforms, it turns out to be more than just that.

After searching the issue on Twitter, many of the related tweets included the presidential candidates and President Obama for being supporters of the issue. Many of the tweets contain biased opinions, defensive statements and many news articles. One tweet that I found that stuck out to me was this:
"@Protocolflow: It's sad that after several decades of racial and economic movement and acceptance we now have race baiting victim profiteers."

I began researching race baiting on Facebook and found even more controversial posts. Multiple people that I am friends with have posted things on this issue that I did not even realize. When you search it, the most popular results is race baiting against blacks. But after seeing multiple posts on Facebook, I noticed that is also happens against whites. Similar to Twitter, many of the posts were about President Obama and the presidential candidates. There were also posts involving Beyonce, various judges, and some news casters. 

Out of curiosity, I searched the issue on Pinterest to see what they would have. I was shocked with how many memes and cartoons they had regarding the issue. 

From a cultural standpoint, all of this is hard for me to believe. I grew up in Southern Utah and do not have very much exposure to real issues like this. I have a few black friends and some black classmates, but when I see things in the news, it is hard for me to believe. Because I have never been exposed to these types of things, it is sad and shocking, and almost unreal to me, that these things happen in our society today.

Race baiting is dividing our country, tearing apart communities, and causing hatred across the nation. It is sad and scary that something as simple as someone's race is still an issue in our society. Police brutality and race is hard. It is something that is a very sensitive subject for most and leaves many people feeling scared and unsafe around police officers. It is a hard issue because many people don't take the time to learn about the real issues and only base their issues off of what they see in the media or on the news. Those platforms give completely biased opinions and only tell people what they want to hear. It is something that needs to be researched and learned about before forming a valid opinion for yourself.