Although the news can highlight different cultures and traditions, it can also be extremely racist. A news article posted by the mail on Sunday had the headlines “Muslim Gang slashed tires of immigration-raid van” than later. This was found out to be inaccurate and possibly simply assumed. The mail on Sunday Apologized for their racist headlines and changed and retracted. Has the word Muslim become a bait buzzword which is used to spread hatred and bigotry? When the 2017 Westminster attack took place, there was over 4000 offense towards mainly Muslims in the month March 2017 alone. And there was over 5000 offense in the month July 2016 when the EU referendum results were announced. However in July 2014, conflict in Israel and Gaza, there was only around 3500 offense. Who would...
Although the news can highlight different cultures and traditions, it can also be extremely racist. A news article posted by the mail on Sunday had the headlines “Muslim Gang slashed tires of immigration-raid van” than later. This was found out to be inaccurate and possibly simply assumed. The mail on Sunday Apologized for their racist headlines and changed and retracted. Has the word Muslim become a bait buzzword which is used to spread hatred and bigotry? When the 2017 Westminster attack took place, there was over 4000 offense towards mainly Muslims in the month March 2017 alone. And there was over 5000 offense in the month July 2016 when the EU referendum results were announced. However in July 2014, conflict in Israel and Gaza, there was only around 3500 offense.
Who would think movies, TV shows, and video games could be racist. Aladdin, a favourite childhood movie had some surprising racist elements that most of the public didn’t even notice, the opening song had the lyrics “I come from a land a far away land where caravan camels roam. Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric but hey its home.” This was soon changed after American Muslim protested against the movie. Disney then apologized and changed the lyrics however the lyrics still have the line “it’s barbaric” which is also highly culturally offensive. Video games also have some have some subtle, almost underhanded offense towards Muslim society. In Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, a picture of a Quran; the holy book for Muslims is found in the bathroom. Muslim gamer thought this was extremely disrespectful of Activision; Creators of Call of Duty. This was then removed after all the hate Activision received a lot of hate. TV shows such as South Park and the Simpsons normalize being racist. Many kids watch these TV shows and are influenced to say stuff their favorite character says or think a certain way towards a race or religion.
However, the media also serves an important purpose in providing a platform for people to speak out against racism. This was most recently seen in the outrage caused by clothing label H&M’s ‘Coolest monkey in the jungle’ Hooded sweatshirt, which was modeled by a black child. People rushed to argue both sides of the argument online, which highlights the media’s most useful purpose: the creation of open discourse.
