It seems like every week you hear about a Twitter fight between celebrities, but lately themore prevalent problem seems to be offensive tweets people make,  and more times than not those tweets are about race.  With millions of people following their favorite celebrities or favorite companies on Twitter, they are bound to see the offensive tweet that celebrity or company posted. More and more celebrities and big name businesses are posting without thinking of the consequences.

In early November of this year, Home Depot posted an extremely offensive tweet of a picture showing two African American bucket drummers and in the middle of them there was a monkey. The caption read “Which drummer is not like the others?”  Racists much?

A least Home Depot was quick to take action. Their statement to the press was “We have a zero tolerance for anything so stupid and offensive. Deeply sorry. We terminated agency and individual who posted it.”  In addition they stated, “We’re also closely reviewing our social media procedures to determine how this could have happened, and how to ensure it never happens again.”   I could tell you how this happened; an individual took it upon oneself to advertise in a way he or she thought was clever but to everyone else it is flat out racist. And quite frankly, it seems unconscionable that someone could actually post something like that and not realize the level of transgression.

Many people are still outraged by this, and who wouldn’t be when so many people saw this either on Twitter or on the news.

Kenneth Cole, a well-known shoe designer, is another offensive tweeter; his tweet is the epitome of heinous tweets. When President Obama stated no “boots on the ground” in retaliation for chemical weapons attacks on Syria, Cole’s response on Twitter was “’Boots on the ground’ or not, let’s not forget about sandals, pumps, and loafers #footwear.”

Cole used a serious conflict where people were dying, to sell shoes.  What is wrong with these celebrities?  One Twitter user responds with “Mocking war to sell fashion? Really?” This is not the only offensive tweet he made either.  Sometimes you really have to wonder what goes through people’s minds.

In the 2012 Summer Olympics two athletes were suspended for racist’s tweets.  The first was Paraskevi Papachristou from Greece, who is actually the first person ever to be suspended from an Olympic Team for a tweet. She posted “With so many Africans in Greece, the mosquitoes from the West Nile will at least be eating some homemade food.”

Papachristou apologized soon after the post was made, but it was too late when a spokesman explained “She made a mistake but it was serious. It was unforgiveable.” She was suspended from the team.

The other athlete, Michel Morganella from Switzerland, was suspended for a racists post against South Koreans. He tweeted it after he lost 2-1 to them. Losing a game is not a good reason to tweet something racist; there is no reason at all to tweet something racist.  Morganella’s tweet was so offensive and so wrong that I can’t write it in this publication.

So what will this generation and the ones after that become? With social media always progressing forward, I predict it will continue to get worse;  more and more people famous or not will post something that offends someone else.  All these people are sending a message though; think before you post because there will be consequences. How people can exercise such poor judgment in the first place, however, remains a mystery of what has supposedly become a more progressive and tolerant American society.