Following our class discussion on the Coca-Cola Superbowl commercial featuring the song "America the Beautiful" in several different languages, as well as the corresponding tweets, I read this article regarding the amount of racial slurs that occur online. A study done by Demos estimated over 10,000 tweets per day include racial slurs, and that's just in the English language. The study divided the tweets containing the racial slurs into six categories, one of them being "non-offensive"/"non-abusive." I was pleasantly surprised to learn that most of the tweets containing sensitive words fell into this category. In fact, 47.5-70 percent of the tweets studied actually fell into the categories of in-group solidarity and non-derogatory description, respectively.
This is not to say the terms used were appropriate, but they may not have been targeted at one or more races in a negative way. A large portion of the tweets were not designed to exclude a certain group, but to demonstrate the inclusiveness of one's own group.
The study doesn't discuss the number of racial slurs during or after a controversial topic comes to light. Although the use of targeted racial slurs most likely increases after an advertisement such as the Coca-Cola commercial, it is a little comforting to know some of them may not be meant in a derogatory manner. That being said, the remaining 30 percent of tweets containing racial slurs were targeted at one or more groups, demonstrating the fact that we as a people have a long way to go toward acceptance.