Reactions to Race issues and politics slam on Social Media
Social media is good for a lot of things, used in the right way, it can connect companies with customers and increase their sales over time. For families scattered across the country or the world, it means opportunities to see current pictures and videos, or read a simple status update about what someone they love is doing in the normal course of events on a given day.
When it comes to politics and religion — long suggested as topics to avoid in social settings — social media seems to have tossed that rule out somewhere along the way. It seems that as we face many political challenges in the U.S., social media reactions now fan the fire as it also tosses accelerant into the heart of the flames.
Without ever allowing time for matters to be investigated, people jump in — shouting onto their status bars and wildly pointing fingers. It doesn’t really matter which side you support, both sides jump in with both feet ready to share their thoughts. In most cases, those thoughts are more reactionary than based on fact or knowledge — because no one yet knows what even happened or what might have been appropriate or justified.
Loss of Life
All that anger and accusation can too easily turn into people taking action, way beyond comments on social media. And so it is that as a nation we mourn the loss of life — two young men gone, five police officers gone. People still screaming about what they believe happened or should happen.
But right alongside all the histrionics, you also find the sentiment of so many wondering how to heal the wounds. Sending several pizzas and salads to a police department to say thank you, a beautiful woman of color with her two young children stopping a police officer to say thank you for his service and teaching her children respect.
When it comes to politics, we’re all probably going to have to just buckle down because the national conventions are just around the corner and then the really hardcore campaigning will begin — and anyone with a social media account already knows just how hard fought that battle has been already — not even from the candidates, but from the supporters, or alternatively from the haters. Yes, as a nation we have a long way to go to start making ourselves look better, so much can be learned from the lessons of PR that would benefit all of us…
A Positive Mindset is important
Be polite, show gratitude, talk about the good rather than the bad whenever possible, and when you have to talk about something difficult that’s happening, show you’ve looked at the problem with an informed view and can discuss it without resorting to what everyone else has told you instead of what you actually have discovered and know to be true.
David Firester is an intelligence analyst and founder of Trac Intelligence.
