The Dawn of Cyber Racism

Mr. Joel Ward scored the winning goal of a NHL playoff game for the Washington Capitals which ended season for the Boston Bruins.  Immediately afterwards a plethora of hockey fans got on twitter to vent.  They didn't vent about Bruins loosing to the Capitals..they vented about the Bruins loosing to "a nigger."  The funny thing is, chirpstory.com compiled a lot of these tweets and posted the identity of the individuals who posted the racial tweets and made them available to the public.  Since then several of the tweeters either deleted their accounts or hid their tweets.  The other tweeters either negatively reacted to the backlash of their tweets, or proclaimed that they were not racist.

True, using the word Nigger does not make you a racist...it makes you a complete dumbass.  This goes for black people as well.  Yes, there are some black people out there that constantly use the word Nigger, but how many of them are smart?  White people who use the word nigger are either afraid of black people or jealous of them.  It is my honest opinion that 95% of non-black people that use the word nigger would not call a black person a nigger to their face. The majority of the population knows that a non-black person calling a black person a nigger will most likely lead to anger and/or hostility...so it is safe to say that when non-black people use the word nigger, they should not be surprised at what happens next.  

When outward racism slowly became unpopular after the civil rights movement, closet racism became rampant.  It seems like closet racism and the technology boom gave birth to the dawn of Cyber Racism.  It's when you try your best to voice your bigoted opinion about races other than yours while hiding behind the anonymity and security of the Internet.  I've been called a nigger by other players on Xbox Live on many occasions, but I was quick to remind those players that the only reason why they feel comfortable calling me that is because they know I have no way of finding out who they were and locating them. 

Things are changing though.  The anonymity of the Internet is slowly fading.  Divorce lawyers are accessing facebook pages and using the contents as evidence in trials.  Employers are starting to discipline and/or fire employees for the shit they put on the Internet.  Going on the web and spouting out from the mouth has its consequences although most of them will not be immediate.  Of course, in America we all have the freedom of speech, but we are not exempt from the fallout that our speech garners.  Sure, you have the freedom to call your boss a complete asshole, but your right to free speech does not guarantee that you'll keep your job afterwards.

Cyber Racism and Cyber Bullying are pretty much on the same wavelength.  These actions are for the people too scared to confront and criticize their opponents in-person so they use social media instead.  In this day and age, it is now uncool to be prejudice or racist unless you have a small circle of socially inept friends who feel the same way.  I'm sure the racist tweets were sent by people who thought that they were only talking to the people on the Internet felt the same way...their socially inept circle of friends...their "followers."  The Internet is different now.

Joel Ward is a class act that I hope many young men follow one day.  He shrugged off the comments and the tweets.  “It doesn’t faze me at all,” Ward told USA TODAY Sports. “We won, and we are moving on. … People are going to say what they want to say.”

It's much harder not to be prejudice which is not the same as racist.  Racism is action, prejudice is more of a thought process.  A prejudice store owner would watch a black teen very carefully as he enters his place of  business.  A racist store owner would not let the black teen in the store in the first place.  I believe that the majority of the tweets by the disgruntled hockey fans are your typical prejudice people.  I don't think that they are going out and lynching black people and spray painting KKK all over everything...but I do think they are dumbasses for putting it on the Internet and not expecting any backlash at all.