And you are here why?

Do  not  accept “Just Joking” as an excuse for racist bulls**t disguised as “humor” - it is a tool used to assimilate the idea of racism, and to send the message - to your in-group - that racism is acceptable, it's OK. And no, this isn’t being Politically Correct, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of humor, viz. it being part and parcel of how we interact with each other, and form groups. Jason Steed breaks it down explicitly in tweets  (that i’ve condensed below). The next time you feel compelled to make a sexist “joke”, do recall this article, and consider what in-group you are about to become a part of. 1. I wrote my PhD dissertation on the social function of humor (in literature & film) and here’s the thing about “just joking.” 2. You’re never “just joking.” Nobody is ever “just joking.” Humor is a social act that performs a social function (always). 3. To say humor is social act is to say it is always in social context; we don’t j...

And yes, in this society, if your only interaction with “those people” is from bad s**t on the news, then of course  your perspective is going to end up skewed

 Michelle G points out that the simple act of thinking about stereotypes can impair your performance (if you're the one being stereotyped) To be precise, as you probably have heard of from the "women should know their place" crowd, A   large-scale 1995 meta-analysis   found that on average, men outperform women in a cluster of tests related to spatial ability by nearly a full standard deviation, and in attempt to explain this, researchers have hypothesized about the   impact of testosterone   and   differences in brain wiring   in capacity for spatial thought. As you might have guessed, this has - only recently! - turned out to be be bullshit. How so? Well, at the University of Utah, they put men and women through pretty much the same test, except they "primed" them beforehand by asking some of the women to imagine themselves as stereotypical men, and some of the men to imagine themselves as stereotypical women. The result? Well, As it turns ...

This one really, really  needs no commentary.  From Richard Cohen's latest Washington Post op-ed  (emphasis mine) Today’s GOP is not racist, as  Harry Belafonte  alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all. Seriously?  That line is so horrific it bears repeating People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a ...

Humboldt State University analyzed Teh Twitters to identify hate speech (homophobic, racist, disabilities, etc.) and this is the result . The west coast gets a pretty huge pass IMHO... (and don't be fooled by the blank areas in most of the non-coastal west - theres nobody living there...) Note that they used humans to do the analysis, not straight semantic analysis (to avoid stuff like "... is not cool!") - it must have been tedious - and depressing - but the results are quite worth it... ( Go here for the full-size map )

Its nice to see Bob Costas (and NBC!) take a stand on this one, and a principled one at that. I particularly like the point about applying the same nomenclature to African-americans, Hispanics, Asians, etc. (That said, if you're in the mood to feel depressed about your fellow man, read the comments. Sigh.)

In the wake of the Golden Dawn arrests in Greece , The Guardian (of course) has a great visualization showing the rise of Neo-Naziism in Greece. Take a look below, or better yet, go check out the original.

via supercali-live Incidentally, in case you don't get the reference, Richard Cohen (who, by the way, is  an Idiot) wrote the quintessentially coded screed defending racist profiling . Coate's response  was spot on, when he pointed out that With that said, we should take a moment to appreciate the import of Cohen's words. They hold that neither I, nor my twelve year old son, nor any of my nephews, nor any of my male family members deserve to be judged as individuals by the state. Instead we must be seen as members of a class more inclined to criminality. It does not matter that the vast, vast majority of black men commit no violent crime at all. Cohen argues that that majority should unduly bear the burden of police invasion, because of a minority who happens to live among us. Richard Cohen concedes that this is a violation, but it is one he believes black people, for the good of their country, must learn to live with. Effectively he is arguing for a kind of racis...

I assume you've heard about #JohnDerbyshire, a writer for National Review, and also the shmoe who penned an article for TakiMag on a "The Talk: Nonblack version". If you haven't, go read it (warning.  Have a barf-bag handy). Its filled with handy tips like (10d)   Do not attend   events likely to draw a lot of blacks . (10e)   If you are at some public event at which   the number of blacks suddenly swells , leave as quickly as possible. (10h)   Do not act the   Good Samaritan   to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway. (10i)   If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but   keep moving Theres a lot more, just go read it (with barf-bag).  Anyhow, continuing on, first some definitions Shockflation The need to keep increasing the shock-value of a statement/position.  Punditroids - the ones who thrive on shock-value - have to keep pushing the edge.  Its not unl...