The U.S. Constitution establishes the equal treatment of people across all states, but forms of inequality – such as racism and discrimination – are still prevalent today. In spite of the on-going hardships, we’ve faced as a nation, Generation Z has the ability to use social media to address and directly combat such injustices. Martin Luther King Junior’s speech ‘I Have a Dream’ says: “This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: ‘My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing’'. America’s ideal of universal equality has been solely an ideal and nothing more; therefore, we must take a stand against injustices and unite together to turn this concept into reality.
The racial, social, and wealth-related inequities embedded within our nation’s history have adversely affected the opportunities for educational triumph for certain groups. However, the power of social media has helped bring such instances to light, prompting the education system to take some action against such changes. The concept of ‘separate and unequal’ still remains ongoing in the modern-day education system, as often minority students lack funding within their schools as compared to white majority counterparts. Today, the correlation between racial and socioeconomic status still encapsulates a major factor contributing to educational inequality. In the United States, schools with racial minority students as the majority population are primarily situated in underfunded/under resourced areas, in comparison to suburban, majority white areas. The disparities, including financial hardships, that have been embedded in minority students for generations hold a correlation to the reliance on student debt for these groups. Additionally, just recently, a Stanford-admit’s request for a scribe was rejected by the university, despite the fact that the assistance of a scribe was necessary for his work as a student with a neurodegenerative disorder. By gaining support through platforms like Instagram and Twitter, Stanford University complied to the student’s request. The inequalities related to other factors, including disabilities, are highlighted during a situation in which a student admitted to Stanford was rejected access to a scribe for necessary homework purposes, gained thousands of supporters across the Internet, and prompted Stanford University to finally give in. In addition to such injustices related to education, the bias against Asian-Americans in the college admissions process, inciting Generation Z to step up and spread awareness about this on social media. Following the lawsuit against Harvard University by Asian-American students claiming to have faced discrimination in their college admissions process, the Internet–users from Generation Z in particular has spoken out against such injustices in order to enact change within the biased system, including Alex Chen, a high school student at the time of stating the following in the article by Jay Caspian Kang, in which Alex claims: “I absolutely think that our generation’s willingness to discuss the hard topics of race and class and privilege will eventually lead to a satisfactory solution for everybody, even beyond college admissions”. Because factors including racial identity have been proven to determine a student’s academic advantage (or lack thereof), Generation Z has been working to take a stand against such prejudices.
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Though Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects discrimination in the workplace based on a variety of factors, such issues are still prevalent in modern day careers. However, Generation Z consistently works to combat such prejudices through online activism and diversity-inclusion initiatives. In fact, according to a study, often white applicants are given more leverage when applying to jobs as opposed to minority applicants. Today, biases – from racial to gender-related partiality – are still inherent within the job application process. As evident by the trends displayed in studies regarding workplace discrimination, there often lies a correlation between racial background and job prospects during this procedure. However, in spite of this, there have been a multitude of actions taken by the activists of Generation Z to level the playing field for underrepresented minorities and women in the workplace. For instance, in an interview about her all-female coding program initiative, Karlie Kloss passionately expresses the need for girls to have increased access to programming opportunities and the ability to learn more about the field of technology itself. Thus, it remains evident that diversity-inclusion initiatives, such as Karlie Kloss’ Kode With Klossy coding bootcamp, have tackled the stigma for women who wish to pursue careers in the technology industry, specifically computer science. In addition, as a response to the increased activism for more diversity in the workplace, high-profile companies such as Google have been working to increase accessibility to opportunities for racial minorities interested in careers at their company. Such includes BOLD, devoted to encouraging racial minorities in the technology industry to explore career pathways in this area. According to the BOLD Internship Program listing on the Google Careers website, Google created this internship program to increase accessibility to underrepresented minorities in this field. Such initiatives are working to tackle the stigma associated with underrepresented groups in male- and white-dominated fields, such as technology.
Prejudice against racial groups, especially African Americans, have contributed to devastating incarceration rates within such communities. However, due to such tragedies, mass social media movements have spurred in efforts to bring awareness and enact change on the discrimination embedded within the system. For instance, in the murder of George Floyd has drastically shifted the way in which Americans and society as a whole view the world across social media. George Floyd’s unjust murder sparked a social media revolution amongst the nation, resulting in a wave of tweets demanding for peace, justice, and change within the systemic racism present in the criminal justice system. The difference in retribution for black protestors and white rioters is evident in the cruel approach to peaceful BLM protests in places such as Washington, Minneapolis, and Portland. However, when a mob of white rioters stormed Capitol Hill, they were treated with drastically less immediate retribution, if any, when compared to the amount of violent attacks black peaceful protesters faced in previous Blacks Lives Matter demonstrations. As a response to such instances, this resulted in an immediate unification across social media platforms amongst individuals who seek justice and demand change during this time of criminal injustices against black communities (JHTL). Amidst the numerous devastating tragedies in the criminal justice system, social media has enabled outsiders across the nation to gain more accurate insight on the full coverage of a story, as opposed to solely gathering information from media outlets that may exclude such vital details from occurrences such as the murder of Floyd.
Despite the inequalities that currently exist in modern society, our nation has undergone immense progress over the course of history that moves us a huge leap forward to achieving MLK’s dream of ‘universal equality’. However, prejudices in education, careers, and the criminal justice system still remain and continue to harm the lives of underrepresented minorities, women, and other groups. In order to work towards the unreached American ideal of universal equality, we must utilize the power of social media to leverage our efforts in developing a nation modelled closer to this goal.
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