Rumbles and Racism Online

Last week in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Garland, police arrested 36 people, including 27 high school students, who were involved in a March 3 gang fight that was organized over the Internet. According to a May 12 Associated Press report, members of two rival gangs met in a chat room to trade insults, taunts and challenges. When the "chat" hit a certain intensity, the gang members set a time and place for a face-to-face fight that included the use of fists, baseball bats, and shovels. Several people were injured, including one with a broken arm. Read the article Texas Gang Brawl Planned Online

In Chicago, an Internet chat room for firefighters was recently used to post degrading and sexist remarks about the woman who is head of the fire department's media relations operation, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on May 13. The person posting the remarks did not sign a name. Previously, anonymous writers posted racist and ethnic slurs, at a time when the fire department is under investigation for racist remarks being broadcast over its radios by individual firefighters.

The technology of the Internet can be used for good or ill. It can bring people together to communicate, to better understand and appreciate each other, and to speak and spread peace. Or it can allow people to spread hatred and incite violence. Each time we log on, we have a choice: will we use our time online for good or for ill?

In the past, we may have had to confront this dilemma: when someone I am with tells a racist or sexist joke, do I laugh along with others, or speak up about the inappropriateness of such comments?

Now, as we enter into chat rooms, ask yourself: what can I do while chatting online to speak and spread peace?

Catholic Connections

"The Internet is a door opening on a glamorous and exciting world with a powerful formative influence; but not everything on the other side of the door is safe and wholesome and true. Children and young people should be open to formation regarding media, resisting the easy path of uncritical passivity, peer pressure, and commercial exploitation. The young owe it to themselves-and to their parents and families and friends, their pastors and teachers, and ultimately to God-to use the Internet well.

"...The Internet is not merely a medium of entertainment and consumer gratification. It is a tool for accomplishing useful work, and the young must learn to see it and use it as such. In cyberspace, at least as much as anywhere else, they may be called on to go against the tide, practice counter-culturalism, even suffer persecution for the sake of what is true and good."

- Archbishop John Foley, President, Pontifical Council on Social Communications, "The Church and the Internet," February, 2002.

Reflection Questions

What will I do if someone in a chat room in which I am chatting speaks words of violence or hatred?

Join us in our Forum to discuss these questions!