The normalization of shootings became widely known through the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Stories dying to explode on social media pages waver the intertextuality between the truth and subliminal biases. Trayvon Martin was shot on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida as he was walking home from a local shop when a police officer shot him as a form of self-defense. This sparked a series of rage and justice for Martin’s life. Twitter tweeted 374,690 tweets and the movement sparked the Black Lives Matter campaign which was started by Alicia Garza (Black Lives Matter.com)
The normalization of shootings begins when a person of authority degrades a person based on their racial phenotype. Racial profiling victims is an understood fad by comedians such as Dave Chappelle, “Sometimes, we want to call them too. Someone broke into my house once– this is a good time to call them, but I didn’t. House is too nice. It ain’t a real nice house, but they’d never believe I live in it.” (Washington Post).
(Image by Washington Post)
Discerning the real news of Social Media
What is solving the real issue? Society has numbed its filter system to discern the truth in a web of fabricated stories predisposed by mass media conglomerates. Dating back to the 1980s the Apartheid reforms in South Africa was broken as President Frederik Willem de Klerk took the initiative to end the racial segregation through legislative adjustments by the National Party. The United States declared the abolishment of slavery through the 13th amendment in 1865 and Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil disobedience movement in 1963. Why does the U.S face a greater racial shooting epidemic today than South Africa (being the second-ranked in gun-related deaths)? Is it based on mere news flashes people watch in their free time? Does the U.S’s social media reflect the direction of our news’ credibility?
(Image by The Atlantic)
Is it possible to defy a systemic form of racism?
Racism is a complicated issue that is buried down by layers of historical fragility and frugal gatherings of modern-day improvements. Constructed by manipulated transparency and promoted for financial gain. It’s a never-ending cycle. Taking sides is the cultural norm at this rate. Are you a Democratic or a Republic? Are you conservative or liberal? Are you both? Are you an independent? Trapped between statuses and videos of feelings and thoughts leave people in a plateau of limbo.
Systematic institutions of corporate brands are trying to earn dollar bills off of skin bleaching cosmetics or the ethnic background of a Barbie doll. People are dying every day. Lives are lost every day. Black lives do matter. Minorities are blurred in the lines of orchestrated oppression, supervised by governments and propelled from financial discrepancies. The source of our news channels informs the inclination to react rather than to respond.