Social Media Wars Over Mainstream Media

This world hasn't progressed all that much. People can put on a good facade and appear openminded and accepting of those of a different age, race, creed, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation and identity. But if their core belief is discriminatory, I'm not quite sure it can be altered all that much. For example, if a person was taught from the first day they were on this earth, that Jesus is the only way to get into heaven, then even if he or she changes religions later on in life, their inner core belief will always give them a tinge of guilt or perhaps even fear. "Am I going to heaven or not?" If someone grew up in a household that deemed blacks and hispanic people to be "bad folk" -- most likely, that child will grow up to be a racist. Same applies for anyone who grew up being taught that homosexuals are perverts and should be shunned. And there you have the ingredients for homophobia. Society has definitely progressed, but more so in legal terms. Blacks and whites can now sit together in a diner having lunch. Gays and lesbians can now get married, without the risk of sexual relations or marriages between interspecies. Your goat is safe.

Who knows? Is this fabricated too?
We all have our opinions and how we love to post them up onto social media. I know I do. We have a voice beyond just picking up the tin can and string and venting to our best friends about it. The world can now know what we think. But, does the world even care? Surprisingly, yes. Anytime national injustice, murder or scandal takes place, especially blasted out on the mainstream media, it goes right onto social media. Especially considering the case in Ferguson, people will either be for or against Michael Brown or the officer who shot him, Darren Wilson. I cannot tell you how many sides of this story was shuffled about. First Michael Brown was getting arrested because he robbed a bodega. Then, word had it that the officer didn't even know he was running away from a robbery. Was it a close range shot in self-defense, against a few eyewitnesses saying it was a shot from a far distance with the boy's hands up?

If you don't believe that we still have a problem with racism, then you need to get out from under the rock and look at the world a little bit closer. On both sides, blacks and whites still  have tension. It's sad, because this world is faking "acceptance" -- it is trying so hard to be what it isn't: equal. The one thing that angers me -- yes angers me -- are ignorant right winged conservatives who believe anything and everything they see on the net. The conservatives who watch FOX news endlessly. The ones who mock every single equality battle that people are so desperately trying to gain. The oppressors. The ones who judge. The ones who think they are holier than thou. Those right wingers -- because there are good right wingers, even gay right wingers who are called, Log Cabin Republicans. They're not all the same.

Yesterday morning, I saw a bunch of photos with this black kid holding a sign up. I read it, and then had to read it again. About five of my friends had posted it...five of them, who were 'foam-at-the-mouth-conservatives' who bitch and moan about any sort of equality movement going full steam ahead. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" kinda people. Their brain only travels one way: right. Even if it's dead wrong, they will defend it until they turn blue.

So to all who posted this photoshopped image -- I'll be honest. You're assholes.
This is the photoshopped version.
Here is the real photo.
Most ignorant conservatives won't give you the whole story. They only show you one piece of the "lie" and then spread it like wildfire on the internet, causing grief within our society and much more angst amongst blacks and whites. It only takes seconds to look up the truth on the internet if you see something a bit 'off'. Conservatives are lazy though. They don't want to do a little fact checking, but they will not hesitate to post something like the first picture and spread it so that people's opinions will hopefully change. They only want to be "right" --- not wrong. They can't be wrong, because...they're "right". I sifted through my feed and saw friends and family fighting about racism and even going beyond that, fighting about homosexuality! How did it end up there? They fought about everything under the sun in order to make people think that their truth was more legit than the actual truth. Do we even know the truth?

Bill Cosby. The name alone stirs up such anger and animosity. It stirs up memories of those who had been raped or molested. This is an emotional scandal that is affecting women all over the United States. Over on Facebook, I had written a status message that got a lot of people a little heated, especially one comedian named, Jimmy Dore. You can read the entire thread here to see how crazy this got.

My status message said this: "What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Why would you want to see someone flung into jail without proof? Or do you really feel that these women are telling the truth about Bill Cosby? If he did it, then he's a scumbag -- BUT -- these women freely walked into his hotel room, had a drink, accepted drugs on their "free will" and then cry rape almost 40 years later? Rape is horrible! But so is lying in order to get $$$."

My point was that I do not know who is telling the truth. I wasn't there. Many women have come out accusing Cosby of drugging and raping them. Then again, there have been similar cases like this before which weren't true. There have been many innocent men who have been thrown into jail for many years over something they did not do. All I asked for was proof or at least, give us something concrete to which we can use. If Bill Cosby raped these poor women, then yes he is a scumbag. If not, then shame on these women. But, I never said these women lied -- I said it would be a shame if they did lie. I simply. do. not. know. Neither does anybody else.

There is nothing wrong with giving your honest opinion and sharing it. But what happens when someone gets so emotionally involved in whatever story, and then takes it upon themselves to insult you or even go to extremes and tells you to kill yourself over an opinion? What a scary world it's become.

So Mr. Jimmy Dore took it upon himself to write on my wall publicly, telling me things like I'm a subhuman and that I should kill myself for my opinions. You can read the screenshots below. His wife made a statement as well.


Then Jimmy Dore took it over to Twitter to blast a fellow writer who happens to have a blog as well. He also told her to "kill herself". 


Brianne, being the blogger she is, posted an article about Jimmy Dore's behavior. You can read it here

But it didn't end there. Jimmy Dore's wife, Stefane Zamorano left a nice comment on Facebook as well, as you can see below. 

My point is, nothing "horrible" was said in my status message. I left an opinion that demonstrated that we need proof in order to throw accusations and possible legal actions against someone. If the judicial system threw everyone who was accused of anything straight into jail, how many innocent people would be left behind bars? It just doesn't make sense. I realize that the statutes of limitations are up and I also realize that women who have been raped sometimes never tell what happened...until it's too late. Almost 40 years later, these women are all coming out of the woodwork. My heart goes out to each and every woman who had to live through these torturous nightmares of reliving a possible rape. Yes, "possible" -- because let's face it -- we. were. not. there.  But how can people who have nothing to do with Bill Cosby OR these women, go on social media telling people, "Go kill yourself!" Stefane stated that I said "horrific things" about the women who accused Cosby or rape. Where? She called my friend Dorothy and I, "misguided dimwits". Nobody said anything negative about these women, except for wanting to know the full story...the truth.

Out of the blue, Jimmy Dore flat out lies and says that I called the women accusing Cosby "whores". First of all, that's not even something I would say, especially to women who may be victims of a horrible crime. To lie about someone's character on the internet is pretty much illegal. It's called, "defamation of character". It is libelous and can be very detrimental if used in court. I never once called anyone a "whore". He then tracked me onto Twitter and left this little message.

I have a big problem with D-listing wannabe celebrities trying to lie and tell people that I'm shaming rape victims and calling them whores. What happens to someone when they get sucked into a story that has nothing to do with them, that they feel the need to attack others on social media? And it's not just random people you don't know -- it can be a friend or family member who has a different opinion than you on a particular topic. So the buzz gets started and so do the fights. It's so unnecessary and this is one of the biggest aspects of social media that I really dislike. Social media is supposed to bring people together, right? But instead, it has tore us apart as a society, showing our true colors and especially our rage against those who think differently, like Jimmy Dore and his wife, Stefane Zamorano. I really don't blame her for not wanting to change her last name to Dore and be affiliated with a moron. But then again, if you back up a moron who tells people on social media to "go kill themselves" over an opinion, it doesn't make her much of a strong-minded women in my opinion. She lives under the thumb of some joker who is trying to make his way up by making people laugh. I'm not sure if I find him funny, neither did a lot of people who came across him. Maybe he should tweet when he's not so stoned next time. 

Moving on...

I truly find it amazing how there are so many people who feel that they can express their racial and bigoted views onto social media without thinking that there are any repercussions whatsoever. People get fired over this stuff all the time. Even if your settings are private -- they are not private, if even one person sees it. And do you trust everyone you know? Screenshots and possible hackings are being done all the time. On the other hand, there are people who know how sensitive racial or any other discriminatory statements can be, especially if seen by your employer. On Gawker, they had an article about this crazy guy who framed his ex-girlfriend on Facebook. He created a fake account with her photo and posted racists status messages.
NOT her account! 

While taking screenshots are seemingly trustworthy, they can also be altered and falsely made. On a Tumblr website called, "Racists Getting Fired", he smeared his girlfriend's name all over their website. The smear got thousands or reblogs, which prompted readers to contact the employer and get her fired. 

Back in the day, it was good to have a voice. It was good to have the internet, blogs and social media as soap boxes. But now, all of our once positive tools have turned against us. It's given more drive to make enemies, as well as to be framed and misquoted with the libelous count of deflation of character. I'm not even sure if it's even good to be on the net at all! But who's gonna be without it? People want to be in the know. People want news -- no matter where it's from, sadly. People rely on spoof websites, comparable to The Onion and get their sources from blogs, and extreme left or right winged news sources -- none to which are credible and then they base their opinions on that. The only good thing about social media now is, you can weed out the crazy people and their idiotic news sources and opinions with no factual basis and chuck em' to the side. And, you can always un-friend and block. 

For more of Deb's articles, please visit: www.debrapasquella.com or join her on Facebook and Twitter. Check out her cooking blog for some of her famous recipes!