Race In DFW: Social Media

Is Social Media educating or just entertaining?

A few years ago, if you wanted to see Americans discuss race on a national media outlet, you had to wait until your favorite talk show like "Donahue" or "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Now, the discussion happens at lightning speed on cable, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or other forms of Social Media. 

For some perspective, we asked two dozen students at the University of Texas at Arlington to review examples of Social Media.  The students were volunteers from Dr. Jason Shelton's Sociology classes.  The students included whites, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and multi-racial students.

Here were the videos the students reviewed:

S*** White Girls Say To Black Girls: watched 8.9 million times on YouTube. Comedian Franchesca Ramsey put on a blonde wig to mock some of the things white women said to her.

What Do You Know About Black History?: watched more than 750,000 times on YouTube. White comic Dave Ackerman wore "black-face" make up, a hoodie and ball cap in a video. He quizzed students at Brigham Young University about African-American history.

 The students also reviewed two other examples of Social Media.  Click on this sentence to see Race In DFW: Part 2: Social Media.

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