New York City, one of the most diverse regions in America. How fitting it was for this first openly gay basketball player to be signed to the Brooklyn Nets 2 days ago. Before being signed Jason Collins’ career was at a standstill because no NBA team was ready to have an openly gay basketball player in their locker room. His career was in jeopardy. He has been praised by numerous athletes and celebrities for coming out to the world. His mission is to make other athletes feel more comfortable with coming out. Times are different and if this has happened 10 years ago maybe the killings of Matthew Shepard and other hate crimes against homosexuals would have never occurred. Which is why to this day Jason Collins wears the number 98, to remember the horrible and senseless killing of Matthew Shepard that occurred 1998. Below is a link of the types of questions he received in his first game as an openly gay professional basketball player. A lot of celebrities artists and teammates have backed up Jason Collins through Twitter and Facebook. Going back to the discussion of if this were 10 years ago, it would be very difficult to see how many people and celebrities that everyone idolizes actually support gay rights. Through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook this can be accomplished instantaneously. Especially because some papers have a bias view and wont even cover such news. This way a lot more people are involved and can be many others influenced others to change their minds about gay rights and coming out in this day and age. Do you think that these types of social media platforms have a negative or positive effect or both on the way news is covered and spread throughout the internet?
I’m not sure I see the connection between the topic of this blog post and the course. If you can make a reasonable connection, then this can count for your homework. If not, you might want to try another post on a topic directly related to the intersection of technology, society, and information.
@StephenFrancour Done. Thanks!