Using Twitter to map racism
Researchers make a map that shows the U.S. states from which the most racist tweets originated following Obama’s re-election.
The day after the U.S. election, Gawker’s Jezebel blog published a slideshow of a selection of racist tweets (warning: the slideshow contains racist and profane words and phrases). “In case you were hopeful that Obama winning a second term was some kind of indication that racism doesn’t really exist anymore, check out Twitter. The amount of hate speech, referring to the president as a ‘n****r,’ a ‘monkey,’ calling for violence and for the south to ‘rise again’ was depressing—and eye-opening,” wrote Tracie Egan Morrissey.
As a result of Jezebel’s post, the Floating Sheep team – who analyze user-created geocoded data – decided to take a look at where the racist tweets originated from. The team collected geocoded tweets – in other words, tweets that were made with location data attached – that included word combinations such as “monkey” and “Obama” or “n****r” and “won.” They then calculated a location quotient (LQ) that indicated each state’s share of election hate speech tweets relative to its total number of tweets:
(# of Hate Tweets in State / # of Hate Tweets in USA)
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(# of ALL Tweets in State / # of ALL Tweets in USA)
An LQ of 1 means that a state’s proportion of racists to non-racist tweets is the same as the national average; a score of more than 1 indicates that racist tweets are more common than the national average; and a score of less than 1 indicates that they are less common.
The state with the highest LQs were Alabama (8.1), Mississippi (7.6), and Georgia (3.6). States in the Northeast and on the west had mainly relatively low LQs.
"Map of the Location Quotients for Post Election Racist Tweets" courtesy of Floating Sheep.
Here is the full list of scores:
"Values for the location quotients for post-election hate tweets" courtesy of Floating Sheep
The Floating Sheep team have faced some criticism over the statistics – including the fact that the small number of racist tweets identified (395) may mean the results are imprecise – which they’ve responded to in a FAQ.
At the end of the day, whether or not the state-level statistics are meaningful maybe not that important. What is important is that the data clearly illustrates that racism continues to be a problem that society needs to address.
Footnote: Jezebel subsequently named and shamed some of the students responsible for the racist tweets and even went so far as to contact their schools. “Calls were placed to the principals and superintendents of those schools to find out how calling the president—or any person of color, for that matter—a ‘n****r’ and a ‘monkey’ jibes with their student conduct code of ethics,” wrote Tracie Egan Morrissey.
This incident should serve as yet another reminder to people to be cautious about the material they choose to post online as it can create an indelible, permanent record. From this point on, whenever anybody – including potential employers – searches for any of these young peoples’ names, they’re likely to come across the Jezebel post. Of course, many people will likely feel that that’s exactly what these kids deserve.
[Source: Floating Sheep via Jezebel]
Kudos to you for putting this information out there. All too often people hide behind the veil of “emails” or “posts” to express their true feelings, however would never “man-up” in person about how they feel. Having made it possible for these tweets to be aligned to those ignorant excuses for humanity is very well done. They need to be held accountable for making such statements. This truly is a sad reminder that this country is scarred by the ruins of racism.
Agree with you totally Carolyn, let’s face it, this is ‘veil’ is just the information age version of white sheets, hoods, and burning crosses.
First of all Id like to say that im overjoyed Obama has won. But.I notice you didnt list the number of racist tweets against Mitt Romney in and around the election race. Id gaurantee there was probably far more hate speech directed against the white man then the black man. I notice there tends to be a concentrated effort by media in general to downplay the racist tendency of other racial groupings. When I do notice articles etc on the subject I often see the phrase “reverse-racism” and others quite similar. There seems to be a misconception with many people that racism is mainly something carried out by white people.
I traveled with my family through the US South for a whole summer several years ago on a historical tour. We saw firsthand the ever present and unashamed racism that still permeates the lower classes. The same racism towards Black Americans was found to a lesser extent the middle class and to an even less extent the upper and wealthy classes. The southern states have a stuck in time mentality to some extent. While reading modern socio studies suggest that most of America has risen above that preoccupation.
Before you castigate the US for its overt racism, we’d better take a good look at our Canadian roots (no pun intended). We do have some proud moments, like the Underground Railroad and a few other notables. However, Canada did have its slave population(s) too and we did a number on our Native Canadians kicking the crap out of a beautiful people. Whose society and governance was far ahead of our founding fathers at that time and still rival that of our own.
Also, ask any Canadian born or immigrated Pakistani or Indian person if they feel we are not a judgemental society. Most people including some of the aforementioned cannot discern one from the other. Canada is not as tolerant as we would like to think ourselves to be.
I have read the Floating Sheep posts and the FAQ. It is well written and the data submitted here makes sense. Read it for yourselves before commenting it will help you formulate a more comprehensive statement.
I was impressed and grateful to have the opportunity to read a such a thoughtful and informed opinion from a young Canadian man It gives me hope in the uninformed darkness that is Harperland.
All you folks jumping on the “whites are racists!” bandwagon should read some history, and maybe take a look around the world about you. In the U.S, inter-racial crimes are overwhelmingly black on white crimes. Those “flash mobs” you may not have heard about are a particularly black phenonmenon, where they tweet and cellphone each other to form mobs that hit an urban area hard and quickly. If you don’t want to believe me about the facts, I suggest you get up the nerve to look at offical crime statistics, broken down by race, on the website of the FBI.
Slavery was an evil practice, as judged by modern times. I would want nothing to do with it were in place today in my country. What people need to realize about slavery is that it is a very ancient practice and was enganged in by all races. In some places of the world it still occurs, but nobody seems to care since it is not being practiced by white countries. It is a shame the world is so hypocritical about ignoring the continuing Islamic enslavement of blacks in Africa. I guess it is only useful when it is time to slam whites with the guilt of slavery.
People also forget that hundreds of thousands of white people died to bring an end to the “particular institution” of slavery, not just in 19th century America, but also along the coastlines of Africa and the Mediterranean. You see, white Europeans were taken from coastal towns by Barbary pirates and enslaved in Islamic countries of North Africa, from whence they were traded or sold to other countries. The new U.S. Navy in the early 1800′s finally cracked down on these pirates. The Royal Navy spent a whole century, devoted about a quarter of its ships to patrolling the coastline of Africa to shut down the slave trade.
It may make some people feel good to slam white people for the evils of slavery, but these people seldom, if ever, take the time to learn their history and thank white people for using military force to end slavery. I am ashamed that some whites did this to other people, but I also wish people would realize that the evils of racism and slavery are not unique to one race.
As for immigrants who find Canada “intolerant” I suggest they ask themselves why they left other countries to come here, if it is such a bad place. I would dare say that we are a better place to live than the many countries from which they fled. They should be happy to be here, not whining and slamming us. Please feel free to go home again if you don’t like it here.
MOST Immigrants who come overhere are already hate embedded from their former land. I see it every day -
Where is NY state?!
Proud to be American! uh huh…
only 33 states… dont quote me on this, but i feel that were missing something. so besides counting, good article, saddens me to know in the days of modern technology we still have to hate each other. Maybe one day we can all live in happy peace (yes i know, robots ruling the world is a bad thing, but still, they cant seriously be any worse then us.)