Racism, Freedom and Twitter Fights

I LOVE being on various social media sites and especially twitter. There's nothing like the fast pace flow of information and sharing of thoughts. Within 140 characters you can share so much. However you can also get into trouble if you're not careful. Once you post something to the public via a tweet then it's there for anyone to see...and comment on.

Seems some people don't understand this.

This week while on my other Twitter account, I saw something and commented on it. A few short tweets later it was implied I was calling people racists. Yup.

So how did it all start?

It started when @ONCEKids received a reply tweet from @LittleLex7 that said "Thank you for showing me Asian kids know how to play the cymbals"

Or something VERY close to this. I can't screen cap the original tweet because it was deleted. But I was able to screen cap the conversation that happened after I replied to that tweet. Good thing I did because soon after accusing me of calling people racist, the tweets were deleted.

Now there's LOTS of things I can say about how this conversation developed. But this post is long as it is. But for my part, things ended on the same day it started. On March 18. Clearly I was dealing with "younger" people who didn't understand the "social" part of social media. What they tweeted was annoying but I went back to my world of tweeting and on with my life

Then I received the tweet on March 19 with the word racist....NOW things were beyond annoying and straight out becoming an issue.

Now I don't normally write rants on my other parenting blog. Or rather, I should say I don't write rants about race issues I face on that blog. No, I keep those rants for here on this blog. There I post about race issues that affect my community and myself as a black women. As a black mother. And as black mother with a half Asian child. Each part of me comes with it's own unique racial issues

But I'm starting to wonder if I should bring more of that element to The Mommy Factor blog. To that online section of my life. Why? Because I think people only see me in one dimension on that blog. They only see the color of my skin and not who I am and what I stand for. I wonder if they did then problems like this might be averted. OF course I might be wrong. But follow my thought for a minute or two.

I'm figuring if people knew that I was an advocate for race issues, especially those involving the Asian community, then they wont be so quick to disregard what I say. Especially when I point out something they said about "Asians" is a bit off color. Then my comment would be valid and taken seriously. Then maybe an open dialogue could be started.

Maybe.

After nearly 20 years of being a mixed race advocate, I know the importance of dialogue. It's important to speak up and say something. It's important to say it's NOT OK to say certain things just based on a person's race. It's important to hold people accountable for their words whether in real life or online.

Sadly this way of thinking many people aren't learning. They feel free online and just tweet out all sorts of things. But when someone holds them accountable they get angry. Why? Because they KNOW what they said was wrong but somehow thought they could get away with it. Hmm

I can't stop people from thinking or tweeting whatever they want. People have free will. Twitter and other social media sites allow free sharing. BUT if I see something in my stream that sounds "off color" then yes I'm pointing it out. That's my social and community role. People need to learn that. And I'll keep showing them.

Have you seen someone say something "off color" on twitter, facebook or any social media sites? Did you reply to them or just let it go?