For those that are naive enough to believe that we live in a post-racial society and racism is nothing to be concerned about anymore, I’d like to suggest you log onto Instagram, Twitter, and the various other social media outlets.
As is the case in these advanced technological times, word quickly spread about an Instagram account called “asiansareugly” created by two young girls by the names of “Zoe” and “Cassie”. I came across the Instagram account via a Tumblr post by salemdylann (attached photos are from her blog). I made my way to the Instagram page and was greeted with dozens of photos of Asians captioned with vulgar and racist words. It seems these young girls trolled the Instagram world for photos uploaded by Asians and reposted them with what they deemed to be appropriate and funny comments.
As of this afternoon, the “asiansareugly” Instagram page can no longer be found. Either the people at Instagram took down the account or the young girls themselves deleted it. It’s just one very small victory, if you even want to count it as that. Those young girls no longer have Instagram as a platform to display their hate, but they still have hate in them. Furthermore, their Instagram account was just one small percentage of the world wide web dedicated to racism. What about the other Instagram accounts, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and blogs with similar themes?
Growing up on the west side of Chicago in Dunning as a Filipina American, I heard my fair share of racist remarks. I was the only Asian person in my entire grade school class of Polish and Italian Americans. Most of my classmates didn’t have a problem with me or my being Asian, but there were a couple people who loved to yell “Chink!” and “Go back to China!” at me.
It’s sad knowing that young people are still growing up hating others just because of their ethnic background. These days, hate can be shared instantaneously via social media outlets. I don’t believe we’ll ever live in a world where racism is not an issue. That would be a perfect world and we all know that we are so far from that. Racism and hatred for others will only continue so long as parents are raising their children in that manner. What we can all do, at the very least, is acknowledge this and not turn a blind eye; we can’t lie to ourselves and say that it is not a problem.
Hatred is a direct result of ignorance so we must continue to educate those that are uninformed. A world where people can peacefully and respectfully discuss differences in race, religion, sexual orientation, and political views is about as close to a perfect world as we can get.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @_Camelia & @talkrealdebate
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UPDATE: As of 2:30 CST, Zoe and Cassie have created “asiansareugly2″ on Instagram with the description “Asians Are Ugly Backup Heyyy its Zoe and Cassie again backup account for @asiansareugly because all Asians are fucking ugly!!”
Let’s see how long until this account is taken down by Instagram too.
