It is becoming extremely common today to go on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and see celebrities getting verbally attacked by millions of people for sharing their radical views with the public.
In one such case, followers of the movement #OscarSoWhite repeatedly attacked “Clueless” actress and Fox News contributor Stacey Dash on social media last week after she shared her opinion about the 88th Academy Awards ceremony and the Oscar nominees all being white celebrities.
“We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration, and if we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like [Black Entertainment Television] and the BET Awards and the Image Awards where you’re only awarded if you’re black,” Dash said during a broadcast of “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday, Jan. 20. “If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms. It’s a double standard,” Dash, who is a conservative African American, said.
Her comments did not fare well with the many Facebook and Twitter users who feel like the Oscar awards ceremony is and always has been whitewashed. Many users began posting negative comments about Dash, some calling her a flat-out racist, and one user even made a Facebook post that asked her if she was performing sexual favors for Donald Trump.
Another instance in which attacks on celebrities through social media have gotten out of hand is when “The View” hostess Raven Symone said “I’m not black” on a live “Oprah Show” back in October 2014.
Immediately afterward, posts from both blacks and whites went viral all over social media networks demanding that she be removed from the cast of the ABC production and other posts simply attacked her character and career without relent.
What we have to keep in mind, as people and as fellow Americans, is that regardless of what political party you may represent, the First Amendment is extended to all of us. Just because we all have a right to free speech, doesn’t mean morality goes out the window. Celebrities are regular people with feelings too, and they have a right just like the rest of us to say what they want or to feel any way they please about the issues that concern them.
While us working class citizens may disagree with a lot of the crap that spews from upper echelon mouths, we still have a civic duty to respect other people’s freedom of speech. It is not okay, nor should it ever be, to attack people on the Internet and assassinate their character through abusive language.
This is a form of cyber bullying and in these particular cases, a form of gang bullying over the web. I’m sure you would not appreciate it if an angry mob pretty much followed you around shouting nasty things at you just because you agreed with Donald Trump when he said during the start of his campaign that Mexican immigrants bring crime and drugs into the country.
I don’t personally share any similar views with these people, but I understand that just because I don’t agree with them, that doesn’t mean I should spend hours of my life on social media telling them how much I hate them and how they’re wrong about what they think.
It doesn’t mean I have a right to attack their professional experience and discredit their name at my discretion just because I own a computer, and it most certainly doesn’t mean they deserve the disrespect they receive on their social media pages just because they feel a certain way about something.
We are all just people and while some of us may have a little more economic stability than others, it is important to remember that in the eyes of God we were all created equal.
I am not the biggest Christian, but treating others how you want to be treated is certainly one of the codes I live my life by, and other Americans should try to do the same. If this notion became a reality, then I think our society would function better, and classes of wealth wouldn’t be so divided.
