Do you believe we are living in an equal world, where everyone gets the same treatment, and the same wages? Racism is a worldwide issue, especially in multi-ethnic societies, and places such as the UK, the USA, and much more. The issue of racism stems from the fact that people separate themselves from others using attributes such as skin color. While equality is a thing people long for, the mindset of most people always have an assumption of people based on racial factors. The issue of racism can be portrayed in many ways, some subtle, and some forthright. These issues can be ranging from things such as lower pay based on the ethnic group of said person to things such as false imprisonment based on racial profiling. While efforts have been made for racial equality such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many people still harbor hate or show discrimination to others because of their different skin tones. People all around the world, try every day to make the lives of people easier. Many people today are ignorant of the harsh circumstances a person of color have to go through just to be accepted by the major public. However, any person today has the opportunity to make a change, and help promote this issue, no matter how small a contribution they make. This is a very serious problem, and many people should be thinking about the importance of promoting racial equality.
There are many ways to go about promoting racial equality, that can be achieved by ordinary people who don’t have much authority in their community or city. For example, a statistic taken by a research center shows that “about half of Americans say it would be very effective for groups working to help blacks achieve equality to work directly with community members to solve problems in their communities (49%)” (Pew Research Center, 2016). This quote shows us a method of promoting racial equality, saying that working with community members to help solve issues about black inequality, according to a statistic by the source, is a very effective solution to a problem. This means that working with others to promote racial equality is a widely accepted solution that is being used. A reason why working with a community might be better than working by yourself is that you have different people of different backgrounds working on one idea. This could result in you having many perspectives to seeing the problem, making finding the best solution easier. Working with people would also increase the rate of promoting ideas like racial equality because you could work with people who come from different ethnic backgrounds, to come and help spread your ideas, this would be much more efficient than one person of one ethnic background promoting an issue which involves many people of many different races. Another reason would be that working as a community gives you the manpower to do more ambitious projects such as starting funds for projects involving racial equality, or to raise awareness to children by doing community-based activities. This can also be spread using the next idea coming up.
Secondly, another method to help promote racial equality is using social media. A very successful example of this is the #BlackLivesMatter movement on twitter, a social media platform. The hashtag was formed after a man called Trayvon Martin was killed. The hashtag exploded in popularity and is a way for young children, and adults alike to express their concern about racial inequality. A study has shown the amount of times this hashtag has been used: “From July 2013 through May 1, 2018, the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter, an average of 17,002 times per day, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of public tweets” (Pew Research Center, 2018). These numbers show just how much social media can be used to promote an issue, in this case, racial equality. There are a great number of benefits of using social media as your platform for promoting racial equality. Such as anyone being able to anonymously send messages or post pictures promoting racial equality. Another benefit is the sheer amount of people you can reach your message out to, “ These numbers are huge – there are 7.7 billion people in the world, with 3.5 billion of us online. This means social media platforms are used by one-in-three people in the world, and more than two-thirds of all internet users” (Ortiz-Ospina, 2019). This quote shows the staggering amount of people you are able to spread your message to. However, social media does have its drawbacks. You can be subject to harassment from hate groups, or from people who don’t favor your opinions about racial inequality. If people manage to offend the original poster of said content, they can always be reported to the correct authorities so they can receive the proper consequences. Social media is a very powerful tool that can impact the world every day. Famous figures in social media, can and do spread the message of racial equality, and their millions of followers are influenced by their words. It is an essential tool to reach out to a larger audience and to push children using the platform towards a more open-minded path. As a normal person, while you may get some social media attention, you don’t actually hold any power to make a significant difference by yourself, the next idea addresses this issue.
Finally, the final method that will be presented to promote racial diversity is through helping organizations to stop racism, and promote racial equality. An organization helping people of color would be the NAACP, “The NAACP is focused on such issues as inequality in jobs, education, health care and the criminal justice system, as well as protecting voting rights.” (History.com Editors, 2019) The NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and has done many accomplishments and it is progressing towards reaching their goal. There are many ways of supporting these organizations, this is possible through donations, volunteering, or if you have the time and commitment you can join these organizations, and help the minorities on a larger scale than many people can. These organizations support the people of color in many ways that a single person can’t. This is similar to working with community members, but an organization such as the NAACP is much bigger and has more power over a community. They promote racial equality and have a set of goals for setting a bright future for those of color, “At the turn of the 21st century, the NAACP sponsored campaigns against youth violence, encouraged economic enterprise among African Americans, and led voter drives to increase participation in the political process.” (Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019) . These organizations need support and money if they are going to make a significant positive change to the society of the people of color. Many of these organizations are non-profit organizations, which don’t use their money for themselves, but they are used only on their organization, to help grow the organization, and to help make more progress towards their goals of helping the people of color.