Daniel McGraw logged onto Facebook on Wednesday morning and couldn’t stop laughing at his friends’ status updates. McGraw, chemical engineering senior, said in response to the enormous flood of charged messages, he posted his own — “Relax it’s over now, Democrats and Republicans can be friends again … in a few weeks.” He said he wasn’t trying to make peace with both sides, but he wanted to joke about all the responses. An overwhelming amount of Facebook users responded to the results of the 2008 presidential election within minutes of President-elect Barack Obama’s victory by letting their political alliances be known through their statuses. But for some students it wasn’t a laughing matter. Marquel Elzie, kinesiology freshman, said he saw a Facebook status using racial slurs to refer to Obama.  Elzie said he tried to shrug off the comment and not let it bother him. “I have a right to feel proud,” Elzie said. James Garand, political science professor, said after an election, people are going to have strong opinions about the outcome. He said people will experience a wide range of emotions — from anger to happiness.”People will use the medium they normally use to voice political opinions,” Garand said. He explained he wasn’t surprised young people use Facebook to voice political opinions because they use it to communicate. Jacob Brown Jr., said he thought many of the comments and attitudes on Facebook were racial. Brown, civil engineering freshman, said he responded to the comments with: “It’s our time to shine, Obama, bitch…” Chance Taylor, graphic design junior, said his status was against Obama, but  wasn’t a racial issue to him, and he didn’t mean to offend anyone.”I had facts online about what Obama and McCain said,” he said. McCarthy said she thought the Facebook statuses on both sides were immature responses to the election.Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, communications studies professor, said sometimes Facebook is a shield from confrontation. “You can respond or ignore comments,” Shaffer said. “But in a face to face you are responsible to engage in dialogue.” Shaffer said the impact is in one sentence rather than a long statement someone would say in person, and people assume it gives them more power.Cameron Moore, bioengineering freshman, said the most popular Facebook status he has seen is about people saying they are moving to Canada or another country. Moore said statuses on Facebook are more dramatic then reality, and he wouldn’t un-friend someone because of their views.—-Conact Joy Lukachick at [email protected]