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Another attack 

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This is a video of a white male attacking a black female. 

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Public Shaming

This week’s topic on the blog post is going to be about public shaming. I will start off by discussing what public shaming is and about where it all began. I will also discuss how this idea of public shaming has evolved through the use of new media and its tools.

 Public shaming of ordinary people is when a person is exposed, humiliated and shamed in public for something that is considered indecent or breaking the law (Hess & Waller, 2014, p. 103).  Examples of this include drunk driving or anything that can make you look like a fool in public and this kind of humiliation can ruin one’s reputation for years. Public shaming has been around for many decades and punishment was worse than what we see today. Public shaming has played a vital role in crime and punishment (Hess & Waller, 2014, p. 103) and has done so by exposing many people are resulting in them suffering for a mistake that they end up paying a lifetime for.

 In the past people were mutilated, stoned in public for displaying behaviours that were considered indecent. Humiliating people in public was taken very seriously and there were extreme consequences to pay compared to this day and age. Public shaming causes a great deal of suffering to people that have to go through the public shaming, their family relationships can be ruined, how you’re treated in the workplace can also be affected but most importantly some people can go into states of depression and seek counselling (Hess & Waller, 2014, p. 102).

 Since the rise of technology cell phones with visual and audio capabilities being available to everyone, public shaming someone has become easier and faster in terms of reaching a large audience. There is a variety of ways that pictures and videos be seen on the many social apps, news websites, blogs and newspapers that are available to everyone at any time. The media holds a powerful position when it comes to public shaming because of the wider audience they can reach (Hess & Waller, 2014, p. 102). An example of this is the video of a school pupil hitting her teacher with a school book because she was not happy with the mark that she received on her homework serves as an example of how powerful media is. From the video being shared on Twitter it ended up trending and landing on other sites such as Facebook and major news channels most importantly it ended up reaching the department of education where the student was suspended and her family suffering a great deal of humiliation where people shared the amount of disgust they had in them and the way they raised their child.

 With South Africa being a country that has suffered a lot of racism during apartheid and trying to work towards equality and end racism people who still carry opinions and disagreements about how the country has changed ever since have been public shamed and trending a lot. An example of this is a video that was taken in 2016 outside of a KFC drive through where four white men decided to attack a black couple in their because they weren’t happy with how “slow” they were driving and were apparently “holding up the line” behind these white men express how they feel by swearing and yelling at the couple including using the K word. The video went viral around the country and the men were publically shamed. They were exposed by a video that had been taken by a witness and the couple pressed charges against them by using the video that was provided.

 Another video was taken by a witness in 2016 of a white male attacking a black woman in a Spur restaurant. The white male in the video was later identified and was publicly shamed on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. A man was exposed early this year for dumping his dead puppy outside someone residence and he was unaware that there were CCTV cameras outside this residence this man suffered a great deal of humiliation not only from the public but what suspended from work from his senior position. The most recent video to go viral and cause tremendous hate and public shame on an individual is the video of Adam Catzavelos where he posted a video while on vacation expressing how peaceful it was without any black people on the beach. This video went viral and it was unfortunate on Adam’s part that he has business that he and his family run this has since caused their restaurant in Braamfontein to close down (TimesLive, 2018). A lot of other businesses that were getting their sauce from the Catzavelos family enterprise have released statements to the media about how they have cut ties with any business involving the Catzavelos family businesses. Adam has been brought to justice as political party EFF have opened a case against him. With this and all the media attention he has received after the video there is no question that Adam is going to pay a huge price for his actions and this will be something that he never forgets.

 I think the exposure of such events and people is very important especially when we live in a place like South Africa with a lot of racism going on. People that have no respect for another human beings rights should be ridiculed in the public and be made a bigger fool. If these videos had not reached the media the offender would have walked away free. I think it’s great how these citizens are being exposed and dealt with, the aim of public shaming is to make sure that people who break the law are called in to order and it seems like journalists, police officer jobs are getting easier by the day because of the technological advantages we have today. I will post links of the videos that I have mentioned in this blog.    

  References    

Hess, K. & Waller, L., 2014. The digital pillory: media  shaming of ordinary people for minor crimes. Continuum: Journal of Media  & Cultural Studies , 28(1), pp. 101-111

News24, 2018. News24. [Online]  Available at: https://www.news24.com/Video/SouthAfrica/News/trending-twitter-mocks-racist-beach-rant-with-adamcatzaveloschallenge-20180822  [Accessed 06 September 2018].

TimesLive, 2018. TimesLive. [Online]  Available at: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/2018-09-09-smokehouse-and-grill-restaurant-forced-to-close-in-wake-of-catzavelos-racism-scandal/  [Accessed 10 September 2018].

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Stop Islamophobia

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“Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.” ― Joss Whedon

goodreads.com 

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I hope you all enjoyed my blog post this week on Islamophobia. I hope you've learnt something about this. 

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The truth about Islamophobia

I hope all you blog lovers are doing well, in this week’s post I’ll be discussing a topic that I think requires a lot of attention. This week will all be about Islamophobia, now if you’re all wondering what this is continue reading this post as I’ll be defining what Islamophobia is and using examples. I’ll also be discussing my own thoughts on this topic. Now let’s get started.

 Islamophobia is a term used to describe any form of hate crime that is being done towards another human being or a group of people based on their religion (Awan, 2016, p. 2). To be more specific this form of hate that is being displayed is aimed at harming Muslim people. Islamophobia is practiced mostly in Western parts of the world because of their belief that Muslim people are killers and that they are just in the United States to kill all who live in it. There have been marches, online protests fighting to get Muslim people out of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.

 The internet has made it easy for many people who are Islamophobic to create pages, profiles to spread their hate for Muslim people. With the rise of internet use apps like Facebook, Twitter and websites have been amongst the highly used spaces in spreading the hate. Many of these groups that are formed online have a political ideology that they follow (Awan, 2016, p. 3). The government has created all these ideas about how Muslim people are just in their countries to bring terror and harm to others, these messages that have been instilled in people’s minds have caused the outrage of people and have been the cause of all these anti-Muslim websites, profiles and hashtags.

 Since this mostly done online it has become common because of the anonymity that comes with it (Awan, 2014, p. 139). Someone can create a Facebook page that is anti- Muslim and post all sorts of hate speech and remain anonymous without being caught. People have also created fake identities on Twitter to promote anti- Muslim messages and hashtags that have grabbed worldwide attention and has created sparks around Islam. Online use has allowed people to target individuals that are viewed as ‘different’ and have all sorts of negative connotations attached to them (Awan, 2014, p. 139).

   Now going back to where all this outrage sparked can be traced all the way to the tragic events of 9/11 where an airplane crashed into the twin towers in New York City killing over thousands of people and is a day that will never be forgotten in U.S history. This attack was claimed to be caused by Muslim leader and founder of pan-Islamic militant organisation Osama Bin Laden (Britannica, 2018), he ordered the attack because he wanted to start war with the United States. One recent attack that we’re all familiar with is the shooting by 64 years old Stephen Paddock who killed over 50 people and left 400 people traumatised (Bulos, 2017). Claims have been made that the shooting was caused by the Islamic state. There are many more videos that can be found online that promote Islamophobia and give reasons why Muslim people are terrorists.  

 I do have some of my own opinions about Islamophobia, firstly I would never condone violence or any forms of hate speech against another human being. It shouldn’t be okay to treat someone different because of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference. There are Muslim groups like ISIS that do go around killing people who do not believe in Islam but people need to understand that it’s not all Muslim people who share the same ideas of what is right and wrong. People that waste their day spreading all this hate need to find something better to do with their time I suggest learning more about the religion perhaps they wouldn’t have all these absurd stereotypes about Muslim people. I also had time to think about the people who spread all this hate and I put myself in their shoes some of them might be going through something deeper, let us look at it this way if your sister, aunt or mother was one of the 50 people who were killed in the Las Vegas shooting perhaps you’d have a lot of negative things to say about Muslim people. I just think their anger is directed the wrong way.

   References  

Awan, I., 2014. Islamophobia  and Twitter: A typology of Online Hate against Muslims on Social Media. Policy  & Internet, 6(1), pp. 133-150.

Awan, I., 2016. Islamophobia on Social Media: A  Qualitative Analysis of the Facebook's Walls of Hate. International  Journal of Cyber Criminology , 10(1), pp. 1-20.

Britannica, T. e. o. E., 2018. Encyclopedia  Britannica. [Online]  Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Osama-bin-Laden  [Accessed 07 September 2018].

Bulos, N., 2017. Las Vegas shooting updates:  Deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S history. [Online]  Available at: www.latimes.com/nation/la-las-vegas-shooting-live-updates-islamic-state-claims-responsibility-for-1506956641-htmlstory.html  [Accessed 02 September 2018].

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The New Age of Digital Dating! Be sure to read up on my new blog post on digital dating and share if you like.

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The New Age of Digital Dating

We all know the whole idea behind Digital Dating, its advantages and disadvantages. In this week’s blog I’ll be discussing what digital dating is and what it means in this day and age taking part in an activity like that to potentially meet someone. I will also be discussing the responses that I got from a close friend who tried digital dating for a few months as well as her experience. Lastly I will voice out my thoughts and opinions about digital dating.

 Since the rise of social media use digital dating applications are amongst the most downloaded apps in the world today (Cox, 2017). Digital dating has allowed for people using technology to meet and connect with singles around them and there has been some success stories in all of this. So in case you’re reading this and wondering how this works let me explain, if you’re single and ready to mingle you download any dating app on your phone some common ones here in South Africa are Badoo, Tinder, and Grindr. What these apps do is they connect you with other singles that are around your area so you can choose to like a picture that appears on your home screen or simply swipe left if you don’t like what you see.  Through this simple technique you get to start messaging someone if they chose to like your picture which in this case means that you guys are a match.

 From messaging each other on the app you can choose to get personal and give away your cell phone number where the two of you can discuss a possible sit down date together. According to Authors (Hobbs, et al., 2017) digital dating is an important part of this day and age and how people compare what they like and what they don’t like. In discussing the advantages and disadvantages of digital dating I will be quoting a few academic authors.

 The first advantaged is that digital dating has created a “more stress free” way of dating (Hobbs, et al., 2017). If you happen to find out that the person you’ve been talking to has catfished you or that you simply lost interest you can just go back to the app and try once again. The second advantage is that there are plenty fish in the sea and I mean this literally, its different from how it was done in the olden days where you meet someone or your family chooses someone for you and find out in the long run that you are just too different and the person is someone who you didn’t think them out to be. The third advantage is that you could really meet the love of your life, there are hundreds of success stories of people who ended up getting married from using digital dating apps.

 I found there to be more disadvantages than advantages to this. The first disadvantage is that you never really know who you’re talking to on the other side of that computer or phone and this is one disadvantage that most people are hesitant to signing up and creating a profile on a dating site. There are a lot of desperate and lonely people out there who prey on innocent men and women so the best advice I can give is to be really careful. The second disadvantage of digital dating apps is that some people only use these apps for their one night hook-ups and run after so such experiences can really put innocent people off and this has since started happening as soon as people realised how easy it actually was to get a girl or boy to “hook up”. The third disadvantage is getting in contact with real perverts, these are people who’ll start talking to you and ask for nude pictures or even send you pictures of their private parts without you even asking for them this has happened to my cousin before and if you’re on the app for serious reason this can really be traumatising.  

 I sat down with a friend of mine for coffee a week ago asking her about the experience she had with online dating. She was really excited about downloading the app once she heard that the possibility of her meeting her future boyfriend could be sooner than expected. She filled out all the details that were required including her hobbies, what type of guys does she like and she completed the most important step which is uploading a really good picture of yourself. In her own words she was a “hit” by the next day she woke up to 50+ messages from the app with so many guys that had liked her picture and wanted to meet her as soon as possible. Now being the smart girl that she is she really took time reading into these guys and their intentions. She ended up giving her WhatsApp number to a single who was a student in Braamfontein, they scheduled a date and met up. She had a great time on the date and two decided to try a relationship out that was after they had taken a few weeks to get to know each other of course, I am sure you’re all wondering what happened let’s just say he turned out to be someone who my friend didn’t expect him to be a real player.

 She then said that this is something that she’d try again in the future. I guess using the digital way to find love isn’t such a bad idea after all just as long as you watch out for the perverts and don’t go in with your whole heart until you’re sure you’ve met a sweetheart. Another thing that I’d like to emphasise is read through the disadvantages mentioned above before signing up for love.  

  Bibliography    

Cox, D., 2017. Mach. [Online]  Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/new-world-digital-dating-will-make-swipe-right-seem-quaint-ncna824511  [Accessed 01 September 2018].

Hobbs, M., Owen, S. & Gerber, L., 2017. Liquid love?  Dating Apps, sex, relationships and the digital transformation of intimacy. Journal  of Sociology , 53(2), pp. 271-284.