Racial Issues Today

No matter who you are, race is a subject everyone seems to avoids at all costs. The reason for this is that it is a sensitive subject. This is especially true in today’s world. It seems like everyone gets offended by anything anyone says. We face an abundance of challenges in talking about race in the United States, making it difficult to have civil conservations about it. Many different factors lead into this including nobody wants to be known as a racist, the importance of race to a person, only knowing about other races from our own point of view, and the media portraying races in different ways. The first challenge we face in talking about race in the U.S. is that nobody wants to be identified as a racist. Besides being called a sex offender or a rapist, being labeled as a racist is one of the worst things you can be identified as. Because of this, people are afraid to have their opinion on race heard. They are constantly worried about offending someone, or having their comments and concerns misinterpreted by others. So often phrases such as, “that was so racist,” or “you’re so racist,” get thrown around in daily conversation. Occasionally, these statements may be true, but sometimes people are …show more content…
I think that we can all agree that the media exacerbates almost every situation, but this is especially true when talking about race. No matter what race you are, you can see how races are treated differently by the media. Take for example the media discussing a Caucasian gun-owner. They may use terms such as patriot or nationalist. Then when they are discussing an African American gun-owner, they may use terms such as thug or delinquent. The problem with the media is the fact that ratings decide what sells. Coverage over protests and riots get high ratings, so they feed off that. News anchors and camera men wait like scavengers for the next big racial protest or riot in hopes of a promotion or