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With other billboards asking, “Is White Skin Really Fair Skin?” many of Duluth’s White residents were reportedly angered by the displays, complaining they are being indiscriminately upbraided for racism.

According to the Star Tribute:

Hundreds of the city’s white residents have complained that the campaign’s kick-off images and messages are offensive. The campaign, they say, blames all racism on whites and implies that white people aren’t smart enough to recognize racism.

One resident, Phil Pierson, was so upset by the Un-Fair Campaign’s placards that he formed the “Stop Racist Unfair Campaign” on Facebook, with more than 425 people becoming members almost immediately.

You can’t open a discussion on race and hope to see it move in a positive direction when you raise the topic by stereotyping an entire race, Pierson said. It spreads animosity and hate, teaches a new generation to point fingers and [focuses] on the color of our skin instead of the idea that we’re all human.

And Pierson — and the hundreds of White Duluth residents — aren’t alone. A number of white supremacist groups and racists are said to now be sending “hateful messages and e-mails from all over the world” to both the campaign and Mayor Don Ness, who is said to be one of the campaign’s sponsors.

I became kind of a lightning rod for groups outside our community, said Ness, who was accused in messages from as far away as Scotland of inviting “white genocide” and being a “traitor” to his race. It was disappointing to see the level of hate and ugliness, he said.

Members of the Un-Fair Campaign say they started the organization because of the local issues in their community. Duluth is said to be 90 percent White, making multi-racial contact hard to come by.

Ellen O’Neill, a YWCA director and campaign sponsor, adds:

“It’s possible to never interact with a person of color here,” O’Neill said. “It makes the problem more invisible.”

More to the point, the majority of the Black and American Indian populations not only have obscene high school graduation rates at 25 and 34 percent, respectively, they also have poverty rates of 67 percent and 56 percent, respectively.

The Un-Fair Campaign and its supporters feel as though this discrepancy in wealth and education is the effects of institutional racism and have organized meetings and workshops, such as “Cracking the White Shell,” to help put an end to this injustice.

To see the backlash residents and campaign members have received isn’t surprising, but what is surprising is the taking up of this endeavor at all. We live in such a racially polarized society, that oftentimes, the simple acknowledgement of racial injustice seems, dare I say it, radical.

But then to go a step further and actually look to bring awareness to this issue shows a courage that is in line with Dr. Martin L. King Jr.’s ethos that all people are capable of calling out injustice even when it is uncomfortable,  disadvantageous, and inconvenient to do so.

While many — if not most — would like to see this nation as strictly Black and White, news events such as this remind us that we aren’t just one-dimensional products of our society. In fact, each and everyone of us has the potential to be much more dynamic and powerful in our complexity.

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According to the news reports:

Controversy erupted at a Slidell junior high school late last week, when at least one parent observed drawings and altered pictures depicting malicious images of President Barack Obama, including one photo in which a bullet hole was portrayed on his head.

The work is believed to be part of a class project done by students at Boyet Junior High, and several similar pieces were posted on walls at the school. At least five images were posted, including a drawing of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck standing next to a tree with a sign that read, “Obama Season,” underneath a likeness of the president. Also in the depiction was an image of what appeared to be presidential candidate Mitt Romney smiling.

The pictures were part of an assignment to draw a political cartoon for history class. Done properly, political cartoons can be bitingly funny and drive home serious points. One of the students depicted Newt Gingrich getting an IV infusion of cash in to his campaign. That’s funny, relevant, and non-violent. You get the statement the student is making  about the influence of money on American politics.

But when the images are allowed to default to our most base instincts of hate and violence, students miss an opportunity to learn how to think critically and be creative.

James “Gus” Davis, president of the local branch of the NAACP and the parent whose child raised concerns about the picture, is upset about what type of message the incident is sending. They believe the teacher should be held accountable.

You’re supposed to be a professional, and you are a teacher. We’re putting our kids in your hands for six or seven hours per day. Not only Black kids, but White kids, too, are going to look up at that wall. That doesn’t say too much about the people we put there to take care of our kids.

It really is (scary) to see that. … This just puts hate right into the children. Why would they draw that if it weren’t coming from someone else? … It was there for a few days, and no one brought it up.

The teacher should have known better. Once he received those depictions of violence from students, he should have had a talk with them about why those images are offensive. It doesn’t matter if it was former President George W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, or President Obama being depicted.

So far, the school board has been largely silent on the matter. The superintendent has said there will be an investigation.

Superintendent Trey Folse would not speak publicly about the matter but released a statement Tuesday through the school system’s public information department.

The St. Tammany Parish public school system takes matters such as this very seriously, Folse said. The school system became aware of this situation Friday afternoon and immediately started an investigation into this matter.

The investigation will include interviews with students, parents, teachers and administrators. The appropriate disciplinary action will be taken as soon as all of the facts are in and legal requirements have been met.

That’s a good start but action needs to be taken swiftly. These depictions of violence are no longer a joke given the fact that acts of violence are all too often carried out. It hasn’t been that long since Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was nearly fatally shot in the head. She survived but has years of recovery ahead. We have to teach our kids that violence is no joking matter.

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Last Friday, Monessan High School basketball students were returning to their locker rooms, when monkey-clad students were surrounded by Pittsburgh fans who reportedly began making monkey noises and yelling racial epithets.

What’s worse, Brentwood players were said to be taking part in the insults, reportedly calling the Monessan players “monkeys and cotton pickers,” and Director of Security Joseph Kozarian reportedly refused to stop the the racist assault.

Yahoo News reports:

As more media attention has swirled around the disgusting incident, Brentwood officials have scrambled to try and alleviate pressure on the school and district as a whole. As of Tuesday the three students involved had been identified and disciplined, though their punishment was not disclosed to the media. Similarly, officials claimed they were ‘reviewing school policy to make sure a similar incident doesn’t happen again.’

Maybe in Pittsburgh both school officials and residents think this type of behavior is OK, but around the rest of the country, it isn’t. To think that students from Monessan were subjected that type of ridicule and treatment with no one at a higher level stepping in to stop it is unconscionable.

With hope, this incident will continue to get the media attention it deserves, prompting an even higher level of investigation and punishment for all involved. NewsOne will stay abreast of this story.

Watch the video here.

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Ranier’s off-color remarks were captured on video at the Pompano Beach Blanche Ely High School.  According to the school’s superintendent, Robert Runcie, the 46-year-old educator has been put on warning before about her behavior toward Haitian students.

An administrator’s complaint detailed Ranier’s conduct as “inappropriate,” saying and that her actions constitute “immorality which is conduct inconsistent with the standards of public conscience and good morals.”   According to the administrator, Ranier once told a student that, “I wish they would put you in a boat and send you back [to] where you came from.”… [She also] told a student to stand in the corner near a garbage can because “that’s where he belongs,” the complaint reads.

Runcie also wrote in his petition that Rainer’s actions “constitute repeated failure on the part of Respondent to communicate with and relate to children in the classroom, to such an extent that pupils are deprived of minimum educational experience.”

The superintendent recommended in the complaint that Ranier be suspended for three days without pay and attend diversity training.  The decision will be voted upon on February 7.

Ranier, a 22-year teaching veteran, adamantly defends her actions, calling the criticisms “made up” and denying that the word “chocolate” was used derogatorily.  To her, “chocolate” is used as an endearing term in the Black community, and she says that her very own minister-husband calls her “sweet chocolate.”

Ranier also states that she was actually referring to some chocolates on her desk and feels she is being unfairly targeted. Ranier suspects that the previous holy water incident has a few educators still miffed, because she beat the charges at the time.

Jean-Robert Lafortune, president of the Haitian-American Grassroots Organization, is afraid that Ranier serves as a prime example of  the dangerous rift that exists between African Americans and Haitian Americans. Unfortunately, Lafortune says he’s seen this sort of discrimination before and told Local 10 News that he has requested a meeting with a school board member and the superintendent’s office “to discuss the matter.”

Meanwhile, Ranier plans on fighting the accusations.

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Sloan Roach, the same official who defended the assignment as merely  “bad” questions and had quite a bit to say about the situation when the story made national headlines last Friday, has been given a new song to sing by the school district:

The principal will move forward immediately to fill the vacancy created by this resignation, Roach said in a statement. As this is a personnel matter, the district will not elaborate further.

A teacher created the racially insensitive questions that were used in four classrooms. After an unexpected uproar from parents and activists in the community, the district decided to finally do their job and conduct an investigation that concluded Thursday.

The racist nature of the questions were shocking to some, because 88 percent of students at Beaver Ridge are either Black or Hispanic. The school also has a multicultural staff that reflects their student body, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

We are working to ensure that this does not happen again, said Beaver Ridge Principal Jose DeJesus on the school’s website.

Even though public school textbooks go through extensive review, it seems as if the more mundane task of checking behind teachers for “cultural sensitivity” often gets lost in the shuffle of the day.

Calvine Rollins, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, says that teachers are under a lot of pressure and it’s easy for them to miss things:

Teachers are under the gun to do a whole lot. Sometimes, assignments get pushed out without a glance.

The AJC reports that this is not the first time that racially tinged questions have made their way into Georgia’s curriculum.

Last school year, a third-grade teacher at Chesney Elementary in Gwinnett assigned a reading packet that contained the story “What Is an Illegal Alien?” It had not been reviewed first.

In September, Cobb County students were asked to write about dress codes and read a fictional two-page letter written by a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian woman who spoke approvingly of her fiance’s multiple wives and the law of Sharia.”

Neither of these assignments had undergone review.

While Rollins hypothesizes that teachers are “under the gun,” that does not suffice as an explanation for the blatant disregard shown by four so-called “educators” in distributing insensitive racial information to 8-year-olds devoid of any context or frame of reference.

How callous is it to throw out numbers without giving voice to the the enormity of the subjugation that African slaves faced? How absolutely heinous is it to have children count beatings in their head, diminishing African people to mere human chattel in 2012?

If we’re going to talk about math, let’s talk about all the wealth that was stolen from future generations of the African-American community during slavery, where every back-breaking second, minute, and hour of work translated into profits for white America while our families were beaten, murdered, raped, and torn apart.

If African Americans were allowed to accumulate wealth during slavery, would we still face the highest levels of poverty and unemployment in the country? Why aren’t our future leaders examining that mathematical equation?

While it is a good thing that the teacher resigned, it is unfortunate that he or she was allowed to do so anonymously, with their dignity intact.

Clearly, they were not concerned with the dignity of the students entrusted to their care.

*******************************************

The office staff at Beaver Ridge Elementary were not authorized to answer any questions concerning this matter when contacted by NewsOne, nor were they able to confirm the fate of the three other teachers that used the questions. NewsOne also left a message for Spokesperson Sloan Roach, who had not returned our call by press time.

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On an episode of her “Both Sides Now With Huffington and Matalin” radio program, multimillionaire Arianna Huffington decided to take the First Lady to task for not being Black enough. Of course, she didn’t say, “Black enough,” she just said that Michelle Obama should be more like former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and visit “South Central.”

Huffington, whom I agree with on most matters, stated that the First Lady should avoid lavish fundr-aisers in swanky L.A. neighborhoods and focus more on demonstrating her compassion for people’s suffering:

“I’d love [Michelle] to be more [like] Eleanor Roosevelt right now, because the country needs an Eleanor Roosevelt who’s going to go around and at the same time that she’s doing fund-raisers in Beverly Hills and Bel Air … she should go to South Central [Los Angeles], I mean, if I were Michelle Obama right now, I would not go anywhere for a fund-raiser without going and seeing the places where there is pain, where there is struggle, where there is homelessness, where there is unemployment, because we need to bring that conversation to the center of the debate and there’s nothing like a first lady or … a candidate to take us there.”

Dear Arianna:

You can take your elitist criticism of Michelle Obama and shove it into a tall pile of money.

First of all, that area hasn’t been called “South Central” since 2003; it is now South Los Angeles. If that wasn’t the first clue that you have no idea what you’re talking about, what exactly would you have her do in “South Central” — get shot nine times like 50 Cent so she can have some street cred?

I agree that when the Obamas come to Los Angeles (besides wreaking havoc on the 405 freeway), the president is either speaking at a university, meeting with the Latino community or hob-nobbing in Hollywood. There definitely needs to be more of a focus on providing comprehensive outreach to the poor among us, but suggesting that the First Lady of the United States stroll through an urban war zone just so she can prove how “down” she is with the plight of suffering, unemployed, Black and Brown people, is about as insulting as Rick Santorum saying that it’s “remarkable” that Obama is pro-choice, considering that he’s Black.

Now that I’ve entertained your stereo-typical insinuations about “South Central,” let’s talk about reality. When was the last time you visited South Los Angeles, Ms. Huffington? Are you relying on clips of “Boyz in the Hood” and “Menace II Society” for your information, or have you driven through Compton and Inglewood and seen the neighborhoods for yourself?

Do you even know the ethnic make-up of South Central or are you still operating under the presumption that it’s over-run with poor,”suffering” African Americans? You do realize that it’s nearly half Belizean, Hispanic, and Latino, right? You do realize that there are thriving African businesses in Leimert Park, right? You wouldn’t just be throwing out the the most destitute, “ghetto,” Black place you could think of for our first Black First Lady to visit, would you? You didn’t open your mouth before familiarizing yourself with the affluent African-American neighborhoods of Baldwin Hills and Ladera Heights, did you?

I know you meant well, Ms. Huffington … or did you?

Because on second thought, it seems that you’re perpetuating the myth that the First Lady is an “uppity” Black woman who wouldn’t understand poverty if it smacked her in the face with a food stamp. With your statement, you join the exclusive club of people who brush over her hard-knock life, where her only riches were found in her family. You negate her work to eradicate obesity among children, specifically African-American children — obesity often being a symptom of poverty. You dismiss her efforts to attract grocery stores that sell fresh food to impoverished neighborhoods; you discount her push to provide tax-breaks to breastfeeding mothers — which, surprisingly [please, note sarcasm] is an issue facing many women in poverty who can’t afford to stay home to nurse their children.

But I guess those initiatives aren’t “Black enough” for you?  You’d rather passively endorse the Marie Antoinette drawing, Hawaii vacation-envying crowd who would prefer that a Harvard-educated attorney and Mother of two “visit” the hoods of “South Central” to prove how much she cares about Black unemployed people. That would be the equivalent of critics telling you that if you really care about your native Greece, then when you dined there with the Greek prime minister George Papandreou, you should have stopped in the hood — if you really care.

See how insulting and narrow-minded that is?

As the mastermind behind the merger of Huffington Post and AOL Black Voices and a keynote speaker at the National Association of Black Journalists, Ms. Huffington, it might be a good idea to familiarize yourselves with the many voices in the African-American community — and they aren’t just poor and suffering in South Central; nor, do many of us prefer a symbolic, executive drive through the hood to the necessary work that the First Lady is actually doing in those communities.

Michelle Obama is more than doing her part. If you must criticize anyone, then reserve that for the Commander-in-Chief, who is so afraid that conservatives will catch him uttering the word “poverty,” that he wouldn’t order “Colors“ on Netflix.

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Germantown High School principal Ted Horrell reportedly revealed data that showed black students appeared “less smart” than whites.

Deborah Cannon, the parent of one of the school’s black students, says that her daughter was taunted by white students after the Horrell made the announcement.

“She felt that (Horrell) presented this information to basically reflect that the African-American students were the reason their scores were down,” Cannon recalls her daughter telling her.

But to hear Horrell tell it, he didn’t feel like he said anything wrong.

The intention was not to offend, embarrass, or to upset  any of the students.” said Horrell.

“Perhaps it didn’t benefit them, but I can tell you what the intent was, the intent was to say this was the published result of the Tennessee state report card. This is what people see when they look at the data in our schools. We as teachers are taking it on. We want you to be aware of it, and how we’re doing it. Perhaps sharing that data wasn’t the best way to communicate that to the students.”

You think? Check out the rest of the story at WREG-TV 803 Channel 3, Memphis, Tenn.

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For many this is frustrating. For others it is proof of their bigotry. But as one New York Times article says, it may be all by design. Especially for Mitt Romney:

Of course, I’m not talking about a strict count of melanin density. I’m referring to the countless subtle and not-so-subtle ways he telegraphs to a certain type of voter that he is the cultural alternative to America’s first black president. It is a whiteness grounded in a retro vision of the country, one of white picket fences and stay-at-home moms and fathers unashamed of working hard for corporate America.

Yes, since 1978 the church has allowed blacks to become priests. But Mormonism is still imagined by its adherents as a religion founded by whites, for whites, rooted in a millenarian vision of an America destined to fulfill a white God’s plans for earth.

The piece gives stunning credit to the reality many of us have tried to deny since Barack Obama got into office. Mainly that America has not really moved forward that much. There are many people, eager to take us back to the “good old days”- whatever those are.

In this way, whether he means to or not, Mr. Romney connects with a central evangelic fantasy: that the Barack Obama years, far from being the way forward, are in fact a historical aberration, a tear in the white space-time continuum. And let’s be clear: Mr. Obama’s election was not destiny, but a fluke.

According to the New York Times, many Americans are banking on that fluke philosophy.

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Lawyer Patrick Boyd of the Boyd Law Group said that Kenchi faced “consistent insults and ridicule from a hostile supervisor.” The abuse carried on until Kenchi intercepted an e-mail from his boss describing him as a “N*gger.”

The e-mail stated:

Kenchi is seeking “a meaningful apology from Hanes” and unspecified compensation from the company “in excess of $1 million.

Attorney Boyd expressed his feelings regarding the undergarment company:

A company this large, dealing with a diverse community, is not taking responsibility. [The e-mailer] was a designer for the Michael Jordan line of clothing for many years! It goes to show you that even companies with prominent African-American spokespeople can have racist elements at a high level.

Since then, Hanes has issued an apology:

Hanesbrands Inc. is proud of its diverse worldwide workforce and does not tolerate discriminatory behavior. After allegations emerged of improper conduct in the termination of Mr. Kenchi, Hanesbrands conducted a thorough investigation and found evidence of an offensive attitude and use of language that is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. We sincerely regret that the situation arose and are troubled that Mr. Kenchi’s termination process may have been tainted by unacceptable attitudes. In lieu of these findings, Hanes brands took decisive disciplinary steps, including the termination of a supervisor, and made Mr. Kenchi an unconditional offer of employment to return to the company.

Kenchi, who is African American and Muslim, started at Hanes in April of 2007 and was terminated on August 22, 2008. Is it too late for the apologies to overpower the company’s racist practices? Should their biggest endorser, Jordan, cut loose from Hanes?

Read the rest at the Village Voice.

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In the video, a group of females, some scantily clothed and others naked, dance for gawkers as they are being egged on by police. The tourists are seen throwing scraps of bananas and biscuits at the women. The video has shed a harsh spotlight on the island’s administration who have claimed that the film was shot 10 years ago, but these claims are false. The “human zoo” display was apparently caught on film (see below) last month for the world to see, and now human rights campaigners and international politicians are outraged.

The tourists’ and police’s antics were first uncovered in 2010, when tourists utilized an illegal route, Trunk Road, to enter the Jarawa reserve.  Reportedly, the tour companies and cab drivers, usually outfitted with wealthy tourists, would coerce local police with bribes of upwards of $200 just to allow them to travel the illegal road.

Under Indian laws designed to protect ancient tribal groups susceptible to outside influence and disease, photographing or coming into contact with the Jarawa and some of the Andaman aborigines is banned.

Local Andaman organization SEARCH and Survival International, a lobby movement for tribal peoples, launched the tourist boycott of the illegal Trunk Road in June.  The groups have also distributed pamphlets to tourists arriving at the islands’ airport, warning of the dangers of using the closed road. Up until now, their efforts had fallen on deaf ears, but the video has put the human safari issue dead center.

Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo promised to take action over the incident on Wednesday, calling it “obnoxious and disgusting.”  He told the Sakal Times newspaper:

It is disgraceful if something like this is happening,” Deo said. “It cannot be pardoned. It deserves exemplary punishment.

It is undoubtedly deplorable that something this inhumane could occur in this day and age.  What are your thoughts?

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The Ohio Civil Rights Commission voted 4-0 against reconsidering its finding from last fall. There was no discussion.

The group found on Sept. 29 that Jamie Hein, who is white, violated the Ohio Civil Rights Act by posting the sign at a pool at the duplex where the teenage girl was visiting her parents.

The parents filed a discrimination charge with the commission and moved out of the duplex in the racially diverse city to “avoid subjecting their family to further humiliating treatment,” the commission said in a release announcing its finding.

An investigation revealed that Hein in May posted on the gated entrance to the pool an iron sign that stated “Public Swimming Pool, White Only,” the commission statement said.

Several witnesses confirmed that the sign was posted, and the landlord indicated that she posted it because the girl used chemicals in her hair that would make the pool “cloudy,” according to the commission.

The girl’s father, Michael Gunn, said in brief comments Thursday that seeing the sign left him with feelings of “shock, disgust and outrage.” He said his daughter was sad to learn they moved from the apartment complex because of the color of her skin.

Hein has repeatedly declined to comment and did not attend the hearing. A message was left at her lawyer’s office Wednesday.

“I was trying to protect my assets,” she told the commission’s housing enforcement director in a Sept. 27 interview.

The commission’s statement said that its investigation concluded that the posting of such a sign “restricts the social interaction between Caucasians and African-Americans and reinforces discriminatory actions aimed at oppressing people of color.”

The case is to be referred to the Ohio attorney general’s office, which would represent the commission’s findings before an administrative law judge. That judge would determine any penalties, which could include a cease-and-desist order and punitive damages.

It still would be possible for the parties to reach a settlement before resorting to legal action.

Any decision by the administrative judge could be appealed to Hamilton County Common Pleas Court in Cincinnati.

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England captain John Terry will appear in court next month to face a criminal charge after allegedly directing racial abuse at a black opponent while playing for Chelsea.

Liverpool striker Luis Suarez is serving an eight-match ban for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra during another Premier League match in October. Liverpool also had to apologize to an Oldham player who was reduced to tears by insults from their fans during an FA Cup match on Friday.

The culture, media and sport committee has decided to hold a hearing on March 6.

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Chen had only been deployed to Afghanistan for six weeks, but his family revealed in a press conference that their son documented several instances of racial attacks in troubling letters that he sent home.

From being called “gook,” “chink,” and “dragon lady” to being forced to wear a green helmet and shout orders in Chinese, Chen painted a picture of intolerance and racism that is a familiar poison in many venerated American institutions, the most powerful and protected among them being the U.S. Army.

Chen, a resident of New York’s Chinatown, was discovered in a guard tower with a “self-inflicted gun-shot wound” to the head, the Army said in a statement. Though that may very well be the “official” cause of death, the systemic and systematic violent racism that Chen endured for such a brief, intense period has the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) prepared to do battle against the culture of hatred toward Asian soldiers serving this country while simultaneously being ridiculed for their ethnicity.

Elizabeth R. OuYang, president of the New York chapter of OCA said that the family “had no idea of the extent or how long this mistreatment had been going on,” reports the New York Times.

Though eight soldiers have been charged in the wake of Chen’s death, the culture of the cover-up has been on full display as high-ranking army officials have continued to dismiss this as nothing more than an isolated incident. That is extremely difficult to believe in light of Lance Corporal Harry Lew’s suicide in April of 2011 after being hazed.

He was also Asian American.

In a statement, Army Spokesman George B. Wright said:

The Army is a values-based organization. We inculcate our soldiers with the need to treat all with dignity and respect. We enforce standards, and when our soldiers fail to meet those standards, we take appropriate action.

While that is definitely the politically correct — and expected — response, the veracity of that statement has been called into question on various occasions. An even more complex question that has simmered silently in a Black community serving as spectators of this latest race-tinged attack has recently begun to boil over:

Why should African Americans care what happens to Asian Americans?

The contentious relations between Asian and African-Americans has been a source of debate and research since the Bandung conference of 1955, which entered the nation’s psyche through Richard Wright’s 1956 chronicles of the event, The Color Curtain,  and then made famous in Malcolm X’s November 10, 1963 speech “Message to the Grassroots.” It is a relationship that has been marked with violence, resentment and suspicion, best encapsulated in the 1993 Menace II Society scene where Larenz Tate’s infamous character, O-Dog, murders an Asian store-owner who is bold enough to tell him, “I feel sorry for your mother.”

It is difficult for many people in Black America to focus on the racism that other people of color face because not many of them have come to our defense when character assassinations and southern-fried lynchings deliver crushing blows to our tenuous equilibrium. The “Model Minority” myth — that has proven to be both the gift and the curse for many Asian Americans — has also been the reason that many in the African-American community shrug off their struggles when they sporadically infiltrate a media culture intent on portraying them as hard-working, studious and successful, while presenting the Black community as lazy and uneducated.

We all know how stifling, divisive and inaccurate racial stereo-types can be.

It would behoove us to take off the society-prescribed lenses and view this intolerable action against Danny Chen not as simply violence against Asians specifically, but against people of color who are collectively still considered several rungs below the status quo in a country grounded in white patriarchy.

Obviously, hazing crosses cultures, as has been tragically proven in the violence coming to light at Florida A&M University, but cases where a person is abused (or murdered) simply because of the color of their skin amounts to nothing more than a modern-day exhibition of Klan violence — no white robes, just U.S. military uniforms. Many people of color are force fed from birth that serving and protecting this country is an honorable endeavor, and while that may be true for many people, who is supposed to serve and protect us?

Racism in this country is a toxic virus that infects the most vulnerable among us at any given time, and we should all, regardless of culture and color, stand against it whereever it may be and whomever it may target. Only a complete eradication of this kind of archaic, good ole’ boy behavior will protect society at-large.

In the words of Dr. Martin L. King Jr.:

An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

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The NewsOne Team put together a short list of the top GOP candidates — in the order in which they placed in last night’s voting — along with the racial accusations levied against them.

1) Mitt Romney

Washington Post blogger Elizabeth Flock wrote a Dec. 14 blog post titled “Mitt Romney is using a KKK slogan in his speeches.” Flock’s post began as follows:

Someone didn’t do his research.

On Tuesday, political commenters reported that GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney has been using a catchphrase in his stump speeches that the Ku Klux Klan favored in the 1920s.

When the white supremacist group used “Keep America American,” it was to rally people against blacks American, gay people, Catholics and Jews. When Romney’s used it, as he did in this Los Angeles Times piece, it was to promise that as president he would “keep America American with the principles that made us the greatest nation on Earth.”

There’s only one problem. The accusation isn’t true. The Washington Post Executive Editor and its ombudsman published articles pointing out errors in Flock’s reporting and her editor’s lack of oversight.

MSNBC ran a similar story and “Hardball’s” Chris Matthews went on air to apologize for it soon after.

2) Rick Santorum

Was Rick Santorum echoing Ronald Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” rhetoric of the 1980s when he told a room of mostly white voters in Iowa that he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

And what about that suggestion that Obama ought to be anti-abortion because he is a black man? Was Santorum trying to evoke the emotional support of right-wing conservatives with divisive racial rhetoric?

We think so.  Political stump speeches, especially at the level of presidential politics, are well-crafted and thought-out. No syllable is left needlessly dangling for a commentator or prowling reporter ready to snatch and convert it into a mini-controversy.

That Santorum would not be aware of this, especially in light of GOP’s past with racism, seems farfetched. At the very least, he is guilty of racial pandering. He says he doesn’t even remember making either of the comments. Pretty sloppy, Rick. Just say you misspoke and move on.

3) Ron Paul

The Libertarian Congressman’s proverbial Rolodex is starting to look like a KKK roll call. NewsOne recently published a story noting Ron Paul’s ties to leaders of racist organizations. And these are not stereotypical backwoods hicks we’re talking about, either. Leading the pack is Don Black, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK and current American Nazi Party member. While he denies he himself is a racist, Paul makes little effort to disavow the views of racists who support his nomination.

And those “Ron Paul Political Report” newsletters from 20 years ago continue to hover over his campaign as well. A New York Times article states that one of the articles refers to the Martin Luther King holiday as “Hate Whitey Day.” Paul denies writing or knowing anything about any of the racially charged articles that have come to light in the past month.

When a CNN reporter asked him how he could not have known about the incendiary language spewed on the pages of the publication that carried his name, he walked out of the interview.

Not the best way to fight claims you’re a racist, Mr. Paul. Especially if you’re running for President. And while we’re on Ron Paul…

4) Newt Gingrich

Gingrich took Ron Paul to task on the newsletters during a GOP debate, but he’s had his own racial flaps. During an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, he referred to Obama as the “Food Stamp President.” Of course, he knew what he was saying. Newt is good ol’ boy from Georgia who knows all too well how to employ racial coding. Gingrich prides himself on his historical acumen, so he could argue he didn’t know that “Food Stamp President” would resonate negatively with black voters and galvanize reactionary whites.

The GOP primary season is young, leaving plenty of time for more of these race bombs. Stay tuned to NewsOne as we track them…

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The murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence shocked the country and came to be seen as a festering racial injustice. It took 19 years before anyone was convicted, and three other suspects remain at large.

Gary Dobson received a 15 year and 2 month sentence. Norris is to be jailed for 14 years and 3 months.

Dobson’s father shouted out “shame on you” after the sentence was passed.

Judge Colman Treacy said the sentences were shorter than many would have expected as both men were teenagers when the crime took place. Treacy said that an adult today convicted of a racist knife murder would get a minimum of 30 years in jail, but as Dobson was 17 and Norris just 16 at the time of the crime, he only had to give them a minimum of twelve years.

He added extra time because of the racist nature of their attack and because neither had shown any remorse or contrition.

While sentencing Dobson and Norris, Treacy said the two belonged to a “racist, thuggish gang.”

Another three men had been initially arrested after Lawrence’s murder but have never been convicted of the crime.

The judge urged police to pursue the other members of the gang that killed Lawrence.

Police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe, commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, said the force would not give up.

“The other people involved in the murder of Stephen Lawrence should not rest easy in their beds,” he said.

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So what does this all mean? Where is all of this headed? Nida Khan wrote a powerful piece for the Huffington Post about how unrealistic many American Muslims have been about racism and xenophobia in the U.S.A.:

In post-9/11 America, many have sadly grown accustomed and tolerant to routine practices of racial profiling, bias and even attacks against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. But in addition to blatant violence, workplace discrimination and subliminal acts of racism, Muslims have also become aware of another nuance that other Americans may not even realize exists — hesitation to give to charity. Because of fear that any charitable Muslim organization or mosque could suddenly be called out for links to a lone extremist faction (whether it’s justified or not), many pulled their money and cut back on donations to the extent that long-established charities found it virtually impossible to survive. Usually without any valid reason, many stopped supporting Muslim aide groups for the simple notion that anyone, anywhere could at any moment single out that organization and in turn put all those who gave money out of goodwill at risk for associating with them. The victims in all this? The impoverished and destitute in many “third world” countries.

Later Khan speaks to the short term memory loss many Americans have when it comes to fear of “outsiders”:

Throughout modern history, we’ve had other instances of outrageous fear mongering, bias and injustice against those whose patriotism we questioned. Though it is rarely covered in classrooms, the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese and those of Japanese ancestry during WWII is a perfect example. Literally rounded up and “excluded” from living in the cities and towns they resided in, these “suspicious” individuals were interned in camps because their allegiance to the country “could not be determined.”

About six months after 9/11 I was harassed at Dulles Airport by TSA for having an African name. There was no other explanation. The guy was trying to make me miss my flight. Things got intense. I had to kindly remind him that Harvard Hip-Hop Archive bought my ticket. I told him that unless he thought Harvard was harboring Al-Qaida he needed to let me go. He did.

But that is just one of many things I have experienced since 9/11. Some of it was within the African American community. Some of it came from within my family (I’m a convert).  There are many other Muslims I know with stories far worse than mine. What many American non-Muslims don’t understand is that most Muslims came here for a better life. The came here because the oppressive Muslim regime they were under was failing their aspirations. Just like the Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Hindus, atheists and other faiths- they came here to be at peace. American converts used our freedom of religion to claim a new faith for themselves. They do to hate the country they were born in. The insane act of a minority should not define the rest of the Muslims here in America.

I don’t base my understandings of Christianity on the KKK. If I did, how far would that get me?

What can an American Muslim do today to prove they are not haters of America? What is proof of patriotism for any race or faith? How do we collectively come to accept the differences we have in the American melting pot?

Ultimately, being American means that we agree to let others who live differently- live peacefully. It means we respect the right of “the other” to be different. I used to live on a block where a Hindu family, a White Christian super patriotic rocker family and an Asian family of unknown faith lived peacefully (supportive and respectful of one another). That’s being truly American. We don’t have to pray the same way for me to give you respect. We may not agree, but I will always honor your right to live as you like. That is the American that I am. I’m at peace with myself, with my country and willing to let the next man or woman pray, or not pray as they please. The question is- what kind of American are you?

Read her full article in the Huffington Post.

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Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, were convicted Tuesday of killing Stephen Lawrence as he waited for a bus in 1993. The pair will be sentenced Wednesday.

The men both pleaded innocent. When the verdict was announced, Dobson said: “You have condemned an innocent man here, I hope you can live with yourselves.”

Prosecutors argued during the case that blood, hair and fibers traced to Lawrence were found on Dobson and Norris’ clothes, proving their involvement in the attack. Investigators also installed a security camera inside one of the men’s apartments, capturing the men talking about threats to London’s black communities and acting out violent attacks.

Police alleged others were involved in the brutal attack and are still investigating the case.

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10. Ann Coulter Says, “Our Blacks Are Better Than Their’s”

When comparing Herman Cain to President Barack Obama, Coultier (pictured right) made a statement that could have been made by a slave owner. Does the Republican party own “Blacks” and what exactly makes your “Blacks” better than African-American Democrats? Her statement was both racist and condescending.

9. Pat Buchanan Says, “Blacks Bought A Lot Of Propaganda On The Liberal Plantation.”

Making a slavery reference to justify why African Americans support Democrats, Buchanan used language also parroted by Black republicans, Allen West and Herman Cain, comparing modern day African Americans to slaves who weren’t allowed or empowered to make their own political decisions.

8. NYPD Officers Call “[West Indian Carnival Goers Are] Savages, Animals,” And Says, “[Someone Should] Drop A Bomb And Wipe Them All Out.”

NYPD officers complained about West Indian Day Carnival duty in Brooklyn on Facebook and then disparaged, belittled, and dehumanized them, despite the fact that the NYPD fired more shots on the day of the parade than any paradegoer.

7. High School Coach Calls Black Player a “Future Welfare Recipient”

Not only did Derek Howard insult a Black player by calling him a “future welfare recipient,” but he also allegedly bullied the student repeatedly. Luckily, the young athlete captured Howard insulting him on camera.

6. Teacher Calls Black First Graders “Future Criminals”

Jennifer O’Brien has been suspended from her job as a Paterson, N.J., first grade teacher, after she made a post on her blog referring to her African-American and Latino students as “future criminals.”

5. Rush Limbaugh Calls Obama “Oreo Cookie”

Rush Limbaugh decided to mock President Obama’s biracial heritage by calling him an Oreo cookie on his talk show:

Well, it — what it’s going to be here, it’s actually a biracial cookie. You’ve got three of the chocolate wafers, and then you’ve got the white vanilla cream — the cream…. And Kraft comes up with the Or-Bam-eo, the triple double-dipper.

4. Republican Calls Obama A “Tar Baby”

Republican congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado said that working with President Obama on the debt ceiling was like “touching a tar baby.” Perhaps he was not familiar that “tar baby” is considered a racial slur.

3. Rush Limbaugh Accuses Michelle Obama Of “Uppityism”

After Michelle Obama was booed at a NASCAR event, Limbaugh defended the booers, saying that they booed her because she’s uppity. “Uppity” was a word used by racists during Jim Crow to describe African Americans who didn’t know their place.

2. Soccer Star John Terry Calls Player “Black N-Word”

John Terry, an English soccer player for Chelsea, called Anton Ferdinand, a player of African descent, a “Black N-Word” in a game after the two got into a disagreement. Terry is currently being charged with making a “racially aggravated public order offense.”

1. Republican Says Blacks Are In Prison Because They Don’t Want To Study

Sally Kern, a Republican state senator from Oklahoma, said that the reason African-American males are in prison is because they don’t want to study in school:

We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.

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Prosecutors said Wednesday that John Terry, one of the country’s best-known athletes, racially abused an opponent during an October match. Though the potential penalty – a $4,000 fine – is relatively small, the case throws soccer’s decades-long struggle with racism onto a high-profile stage with deep ramifications for both the sport and Terry, who captains Chelsea and the English national team.

England has largely eradicated the abuse against black players that blighted the game here in the 1970s and ’80s, but recent incidents have raised questions about how far the Premier League has to go. On Tuesday, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez received an eight-match ban and 40,000-pound ($62,000) fine from England’s Football Association for racially abusing a Manchester United player during another match in October.

The sport’s international governing body has a mixed record on the issue. FIFA has launched anti-racism campaigns but its president, Sepp Blatter, set off a wave of outrage last month by claiming that racist abuse does not exist on the soccer field and suggesting that any incidents could be settled by a handshake at the end of a match.

Prosecutors decided on Wednesday to charge Terry after studying video of him apparently hurling abuse at Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand toward the end of the Oct. 23 match, which was broadcast around the world. The video appears to show him yelling two obscenities and the word “black.”

Prosecutors declared that Terry had committed a “racially aggravated public order offense.”

Terry denies wrongdoing, though he doesn’t deny saying the words after a verbal clash with Ferdinand. He said the words were taken out of context because he was repeating an accusation he felt had wrongly been made against him.

“I have never aimed a racist remark at anyone and count people from all races and creeds among my closest friends,” Terry said. “I will fight tooth and nail to prove my innocence.”

Ferdinand has not commented directly on the case, and the Football Association has yet to issue a ruling, saying it will wait for the police investigation to be completed. Police and prosecutors became involved after a member of the public made a complaint against the defender, having seen footage of his comments.

“After careful consideration of all the evidence I am satisfied there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute this case,” Alison Saunders, the chief crown prosecutor for London, said in a statement.

Terry will have to appear at West London Magistrates’ Court on Feb. 1 in a case that could threaten both his public image – worth millions in endorsements – and his international career.

If he is found guilty, it will be difficult for him to represent England at next summer’s European Championship – especially since he often partners with Ferdinand’s brother Rio in central defense. Terry already lost the England captaincy once, ahead of the 2010 World Cup, after being embroiled in a sex scandal, but he regained the armband this year.

Anti-racism campaigners are hailing prosecutors’ announcement and the FA’s punishment of Suarez as evidence that new weapons are being deployed against racism in soccer.

“It’s a very important point in the history of campaigning against racism in football,” said Herman Ouseley, chairman of the group Kick It Out. “People who are very cynical – and a lot of black footballers have been right up until I think yesterday – think it’s a waste of time because the campaign hasn’t stopped these things from happening. It goes on, it’s quiet, it’s subtle and nothing ever gets done.

“It’s quite important that (players) now feel a bit more confident that, although it has taken a while, due process with decisive action could well make a change.”

Suarez was found by an independent FA panel to have directed racist abuse at Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, who is black. However, unlike the Terry case, Suarez’s abuse was not caught on camera and there has been no complaint to the police to trigger a criminal investigation.

Liverpool players issued a statement Wednesday saying they were “shocked and angered” by Suarez’s punishment, and that they support their Uruguayan teammate. “We know he is not racist,” they said.

England is far from alone in European soccer in having to combat discrimination. Most high-profile cases have involved abusive chants by fans against players, but there have been several on-field incidents as well.

The French soccer league has opened an inquiry after claims from Morocco midfielder Kamel Chafni that an assistant referee racially insulted him during Auxerre’s 1-0 defeat at Brest on Saturday.

Bulgaria’s national federation was fined euro40,000 (about $52,000) by UEFA after its fans directed racist abuse at England players during a Euro 2012 qualifying match in September.

But Luis Aragones held onto his job as Spain coach in 2005 after making racist remarks about French striker Thierry Henry, landing a fine of just euro3,000 ($3,900).

“I think the problem has never gone away – it’s just become more subtle and less obvious,” said Ouseley, a member of the House of Lords. “I think there is an awareness that more has to be done.”

Ouseley pointed out that Poland and Ukraine, the co-hosts of Euro 2012, have also had problems with racism in the past, and that next summer’s tournament will be a good indicator of whether they and other countries are taking the matter seriously.

“We know from the reports we’ve had back (that) there are going to be problems there,” Ouseley said. “They will make the right noises but will they do they right thing? Will they stop abuse?”

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The Contra Costa Times reports the newsletter sent last week from Sequoia Middle School in Pleasant Hill included a Peanuts cartoon showing a black character with a noose around his neck beneath the words “White Pride.”

School officials say the cartoon was in fact evidence in a 3-year-old hate crime investigation stemming from racist graffiti on a campus mural.

Principal Connie Cirimeli wrote in a letter to the community Sunday that the busy secretary added the digital image to the newsletter without closely examining it. She said the secretary then sent out the newsletter without having other staffers proofread it, contrary to school policy.

Cirimeli added that “appropriate personnel action” would be taken. She did not elaborate.

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The door to the temple she runs in a middle-class neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro sits behind a plain, dilapidated door and has no sign out front announcing its presence. Inside, worshippers pay homage to images of African-descended gods, the Orixas, but the figures are stored discreetly behind a wooden lattice beneath an altar adorned with a nearly life-sized image of Jesus flanked by St. Barbara and the Virgin Mary.

Although an estimated 400,000 Brazilians such as Cardoso follow the religion, they also continue to face prejudices that clash with the country’s public image of racial and religious harmony.

Intolerance and outright hostility against Umbanda, as well as Brazil’s other major African-descended religion Candomble, have recently returned to the spotlight as religious-freedom activists denounce the demolition of a house known as Umbanda’s birthplace.

At the same time, the owner of another Umbanda temple in the same city, Sao Goncalo, across the bay from Rio, is fighting an eminent domain order to turn his house into a sports center.

Cardoso said she’s learned not to let down her guard when it comes to protecting herself from religious scorn. This country of 190 million remains predominantly Roman Catholic, even as Pentecostal congregations have won over legions of converts.

Many in Rio can rattle off the names of a few Orixas, and thousands of believers and sympathizers flock to beaches on New Year’s dressed in white to leave offerings for the ocean goddess Iemanja.

Nonetheless, many Brazilians often view Umbanda and Candomble as barely benign versions of witchcraft, and believers are loath to acknowledge publicly they follow the faiths. In many parts of the country, practicing Umbanda was outlawed until the 1950s, and in the following three decades believers were supposed to register with the police.

“We used to have to hide in the woods to do our ceremonies,” Cardoso said one night, as an Umbanda ceremony full of drums, dancing and bodily possessions got under way. Even now, Cardoso doesn’t open her house to strangers without a thorough vetting.

Umbanda was founded a little more than a century ago, drawing from older traditions such as Catholicism, the beliefs of enslaved Yoruba people brought from West Africa, the spirituality of Brazil’s indigenous groups and the teachings of 19th century French spiritualist Allan Kardec.

The religion has many variations, but all share belief in a supreme being, Oxala, and in a pantheon of other African-origin deities, many of whom are identified with a Catholic saint and with natural forces or elements. They also believe these deities, along with other spirits, can enter the body of psychics to advise and interact with the living.

A city survey in 2011 found 847 Umbanda houses of worship in Rio, though like Cardoso’s they’re often not easy to spot.

On a recent night at Cardoso’s house, a young woman in a long white dress stepped into a six-pointed star painted in the center of the room, calm despite the fast-beating drums, the chanting and the thick incense smoke around her.

Suddenly, she crumpled to the floor. When she stood up again, she had the deeply bowed back of the very old. Her fingers and toes curled as with arthritis, and her face was drawn, mouth puckered, eyes squinting. Her voice cracked as she shuffled around the room, blessing each of the ceremony’s participants.

It was the beginning of the night of the “pretos velhos,” or the old black men. Soon, all the “sons” and “daughters” of the house were incorporating, according to their belief, the spirits of wise old black ancestors, and later offering one-on-one advice to the dozens of followers attending the ceremony.

Brazil’s post-dictatorship 1989 constitution enshrined the freedom to hold such ceremonies, but Umbanda’s followers say official disdain and intense prejudice still put their lives and shrines at risk.

According to police reports, followers of Afro-Brazilian religions report on average 100 cases of physical or verbal attacks a year because of their faith, in the state of Rio de Janeiro alone.

Another report, which was submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council by a Brazilian religious-freedom group, details 39 cases of discrimination around the country in 2009. Cases range from a bank’s refusal in Minas Gerais state to give an Afro-Brazilian religious association an account to the partial destruction of a Candomble temple in Bahia state. The two cases, from 2008, are still being investigated.

“Umbanda has suffered a lot of pressure from other religions, as well as from the state and from police,” said Fernando Altemeyer, a theologian at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. “It has these elements from Catholicism, but isn’t Catholic; from spiritualism, without following exactly Kardec’s beliefs. So no one recognizes it as their own.”

Cases of persecution against Umbanda and Candomble have increased along with the presence and the power of Pentecostal religions, Altemeyer said.

“There is always a discourse of ‘taking them from the hands of the devil,’ converting them,” Altemeyer said. “Evangelical actions on this front are very significant.”

Such tensions have come into relief in Sao Goncalo, where Mayor Aparecida Panniset, an outspoken Pentecostal, has been accused of failing to protect Umbanda sites, or even destroying them.

In October, she ignored pleas by religious tolerance activists to stop the demolition of the house where the first Umbanda rituals were held in 1908. She also turned down requests to meet the activists, they said.

Panniset then moved ahead with efforts to raze another traditional Umbanda house in the same city. Tractors have started to level the land and a fence was built around the property with signs announcing a sports center’s arrival, although Sao Goncalo has not been granted rights to build it and the case is pending in court.

The mayor didn’t respond to several calls and emails from The Associated Press requesting comment. Documents filed in court by the city do not mention a temple on the land, or the owners’ home. Instead it refers to unspecified buildings “in poor state of preservation” and “illegal occupations,” and says the area has little value as real estate. Owner Cristiano Ramos said no city officials ever inspected the property.

“Ever since slavery, we’ve been used to taking beatings and keeping quiet to survive,” Ramos said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to resist. We’ve been here all these centuries, and we’re going to continue.”

Ramos inherited the house from his father, also an Umbanda priest who in 1947 incorporated the spirit of an indigenous deity, the Indian with a Golden Feather, that gives the 40-year-old temple its name.

The Commission Against Religious Intolerance, a Rio-based nonprofit, is still fighting to build a museum of Umbanda on the site of the religion’s first house of worship. The Sao Goncalo city council announced Thursday it will seek to declare the property a protected historical site and will examine the plan to build a museum on the spot.

“Building the museum is one way to repair and minimize the damage done in October, when the house that was the birthplace of Umbanda was torn down,” said council member Amarildo Aguiar in a statement.

Ramos said he wants to see the museum built, but at the same time, he said Umbanda should remain a living faith. And he said that means protecting the houses where this most Brazilian of faiths lives on.

“I’m not ready to turn into an exhibit,” Ramos said. “My house is an active house. We’ve been here, living in our faith with our Orixas, and respecting others. We’re going to ask for that respect back.”

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For the last few years, activists have worked to reform or change Zwarte Piet. In 2007, Piet’s face was depicted as multicolored instead of black.

“I am afraid to say — and I know this will not go down well with many Dutch white people — that Black Pete is tainted beyond redemption,” Flavia Dzodan, a South American-born, Amsterdam-based activist said. “There is no redeemable quality in this character in its current incarnation. There is no going around the racist nature of a character that acts as a de facto slave for a white saint, who is portrayed as clumsy and mischievous, who is used as an instrument to instill fear in children who misbehave.”

Read more at the Root.

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Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said Wednesday the move “sends an important signal that firm action against those who advocate hate must remain central to Germany’s moral and legal agenda.”

Cologne police say Duke, 61, was taken into custody Friday before his speech for breaking a travel-ban to many European nations including Germany.

They say the U.S. resident was released and forced to leave the country and that they do not know where he is now.

Duke’s website called the incident “thuggish communist-style oppression to suppress the right-wing.

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The woman’s tirade was caught on camera and posted on Youtube. So far, one version of the video has 134, 551 views as of 10:00 a.m. this morning.

Some of her racist remarks include the following:

“What has this country come to?…with loads of black people and a load of —-ing Polish.

“You ain’t English eeva (sic), none of you are —-ing English, get back to you’re own —-ing, d’you know what?

“Sort out your own countries, don’t come and do mine, Britain is nothing now, Britain is —- all, my Britain is —- all now.”

The Telegraph reports that the British Transport Police has launched an investigation into the incident.

What is up with this woman? Why did she take out her racial tensions on innocent passengers for no apparent reason?

Read the rest of the story at The Telegraph and give us your thoughts below.

UPDATE: The Telegraph reports that the woman in the Youtube video yelling racist rants is Emma West, 34, of New Addington, London. She appeared before magistrates today charged with racially aggravated harassment, The Telegraph reports.

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Pat Robertson never fails to deliver. More foolishness from America’s favorite crypto-Christian conservative crackpot. This via the Huffington Post:

Pat Robertson appeared confused about macaroni and cheese while hosting “The 700 Club” Wednesday on the Christian Broadcasting Network following a clip of host Kristi Watts interviewing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In the clip, Watts asked Rice what dish she had to have at Thanksgiving. “It’s mac and cheese,” Rice said.

Watts clapped. “Sister, that is my dish, that is the one thing I can rock,” she said.

“But only once, once a year,” said Rice.

Following the clip, Robertson asked, “What is this mac and cheese? Is that a black thing?”

Read more on the Huffington Post

Limbaugh defended the booers, claiming that they had a right to do so, considering her healthy eating initiatives and vacations, accusing her of “uppity-ism.”

The term “uppity” has historically been used to describe African-Americans who didn’t know their place.

“I’ll tell you something else — we don’t like paying millions of dollars for Mrs. Obama’s vacations,” he said. “The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why, when the husband and the wife are going the same place, the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers-on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747. NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it is a little bit of uppity-ism. First ladies have not been known to hop their own 757s four hours ahead of their husband when they’re going the same place.”

“It is very common to see interracial couples here in Lansing,” said Beth Brokaw, a 28-year-old Lansing native. “Race was never an issue when it came to me, my friends, and dating. I knew a lot of people who were attracted to nothing but people from different races.”

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Lansing, Michigan’s capital city, is more of a cultural melting pot than most cities in the state. Just 55 percent of the city’s 115,000 residents are white, the black population has risen 10 percent since 2000, and the Hispanic population — confined largely to the city’s south side — has tripled in the last decade.

According to the 2010 Census, 4.1 percent of Lansing’s black residents, or one out of every 25, identify themselves as being of mixed race. The next closest cities are Tacoma, Wash. and Killeen, Texas at 3.8 percent.

“You always see interracial couples here,” said Brokaw, who is white and has two biracial children. “My kids will tell you that they are mixed with black and white. When President Obama was elected, my oldest went around telling people that she was mixed like him.”

Read more at TheGrio.com

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SUNY New Paltz, one of the state of New York’s many universities, has recently been bombarded by racist signs most notably, one by a water fountain that harkens back to the Civil Rights era with a sign reading, “Colored Only.”

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On Nov. 8, the sticker was found near the water fountain, said the school president in a memo after the incident.

Hours later, another sign in the shape of a hand giving the middle finger was found in Lefevre Hall, a dorm, that said “Lynching n—ers program at 7:30 main lounge,” according to a student Facebook page.

That sign originally advertised a dorm event before it was torn into the shape of a hand and scrawled with the racist message, a student said.

Read more at NYDailyNews

Roy Egan worked at the airport for close to a decade and was suspended in October after TSA found him to be in violation of employee conduct on and off the job.

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The postings — consisting of comments and graphic images alike — on Egan’s Facebook page are startling. In addition to anti-gay and anti-Muslim remarks, Egan allegedly posted racist comments about African Americans and Latinos.

“Does anything at all make you smile more than a Muslim burning by his own hateful hand?” Egan reportedly wrote in one post. He describes President Obama as “Muslim-in-chief” in another. He wrote that Attorney General Eric Holder should “die tasting your own blood,” according to ABC.

Read more at Huffington Post

The lawmaker made the comments during a conference on Islamic extremism in America.

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“Personally, I don’t trust one Muslim in our military” and “if they truly are a devout Muslims, and follow the Quran and the Sunnah, then I feel threatened because they’re commanded to kill me,” the U.S. Air Force vet told Think Progress.

When asked if Muslims should be booted from the military, he replied “absolutely, yeah.”

As reported by the Kansas City Star and KCTV News, among other outlets, Marcus Williams Sr. and his son, Marcus Williams Jr., filed a racial harassment suit against the Winnetonka School District after Winnetonka (Kan.) High basketball coach Derek Howard called the younger Williams a “future welfare recipient” while the student was posing for a picture in a school hallway, then repeated the comments while Williams filmed him on his cell phone.

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Here’s how Marcus Williams Jr. described the incident to KCTV:

“[Howard] was doing a daily jog and he stopped and he said, ‘Hey, take a picture and then at the bottom: future welfare recipient,’” the student said. “I just felt belittled, crushed and utterly discouraged.”

Marcus Williams said this comment was typical of those he has endured for the past two years. So he grabbed his cell phone and asked his coach to repeat his remarks.

The coach can be heard laughing and saying, “Future welfare recipient who? Students that don’t get good grades.”

Read more at Yahoo Sports

Of the last 13 men that have been sentenced to death in Harris County, 12 of them are black, according to an analysis of prison and prosecution records by the Houston Chronicle. The discovery has prompted some local lawyers to ask for an investigation and calls for more debate around the administration of capital punishment.

“The more the defendant looks like you the harder it is to kill him — human nature being what it is,” said Robert Murrow, one of the county’s capital defense attorneys. “It’s something we have to be thinking about. It’s an issue we never should get too far out of the front of our consciousness.”

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The role of race in death penalty sentencing became a major issue in the county when the U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of Duane Buck, after reviewing the testimony of a psychologist who said during the trial that black people were more likely to commit violence. Buck’s appeal of his pending execution was rejected last week. Although the inmate’s supporters pleaded with Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos, she told The Chronicle she has not yet made a decision.

“Before we take any action, we will carefully evaluate the arguments of Mr. Buck’s lawyers and his supporters,” she told the news source. “He will receive fair and thorough consideration of his claims.”

Read more at Huffington Post

The waitress, 27-year-old Courtney Haywood, filed a discrimination lawsuit after being fired earlier this year.

She started working at the Applebees location in 2007, and when new management took over earlier this year, that’s when the problems began.

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According to the thetowerlight.com , Haywood said “I talked to a manager, who kept saying, ‘I will take care of it, don’t worry about it.’ And nothing was taken care of.”

After filing several complaints with the company, Haywood said she was given a termination letter in October 2011.

Haywood has filed a complaint of racial discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“We had come so far,” she says. “We had left the movement, had created a good family life. We had so much to live for. I just thought there has to be someone out there who will help us.”

See also: White Supremacists In San Francisco: Conviction Uncovers Network Of Hate Groups

After getting married in 2006, the couple, former pillars of the white power movement (she as a member of the National Alliance, he a founder of the Vinlanders gang of skinheads) had worked hard to put their racist past behind them. They had settled down and had a baby; her younger children had embraced him as a father.

A reformed skinhead, Bryon Widner was desperate to rid himself of the racist tattoos that covered his face that he turned to former enemies for help, and was willing to endure months of pain.

And yet, the past was ever-present – tattooed in brutish symbols all over his body and face: a blood-soaked razor, swastikas, the letters “HATE” stamped across his knuckles.

Wherever he turned Widner was shunned – on job sites, in stores and restaurants. People saw a menacing thug, not a loving father. He felt like an utter failure.

The couple had scoured the Internet trying to learn how to safely remove the facial tattoos. But extensive facial tattoos are extremely rare, and few doctors have performed such complicated surgery. Besides, they couldn’t afford it. They had little money and no health insurance.

So Widner began investigating homemade recipes, looking at dermal acids and other solutions. He reached the point, he said, where “I was totally prepared to douse my face in acid.”

In desperation, Julie did something that once would have been unimaginable. She reached out to a black man whom white supremacists consider their sworn enemy.

Daryle Lamont Jenkins runs an anti-hate group called One People’s Project based in Philadelphia. The 43-year-old activist is a huge thorn in the side of white supremacists, posting their names and addresses on his website, alerting people to their rallies and organizing counter protests.

In Julie he heard the voice of a woman in trouble.

“It didn’t matter who she had once been or what she had once believed,” he said. “Here was a wife and mother prepared to do anything for her family.”

Jenkins suggested that Widner contact T.J. Leyden, a former neo-Nazi skinhead Marine who had famously left the movement in 1996, and has promoted tolerance ever since. More than anyone else, Leyden understood the revulsion and self-condemnation that Widner was going through. And the danger.

“Hide in plain sight,” he advised. “Lean on those you trust.”

Most importantly, Leyden told him to call the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“If anyone can help,” he said, “it’s those guys.”

When Widner called, says Joseph Roy, “it was like the Osama Bin Laden of the movement calling in.”

Roy is chief investigator of hate and extreme groups for the SPLC. The nonprofit civil rights organization, based in Montgomery, Ala., tracks hate groups, militias and extreme organizations. Aggressive at bringing lawsuits, it has successfully shut down leading white power groups, bankrupted their leaders and won multimillion dollar awards for victims.

The SPLC hears regularly from people who say they are trying to leave hate and extreme groups. Some are fakes. Some are trying to spread false intelligence. Many are in crisis, and return to the group when the crisis passes.

“Very rarely have we met a reformed racist skinhead,” says Roy.

Over the years, Roy had dubbed Widner the “pit bull” of skinheads. “No one was more aggressive, more confrontational, more notorious,” Roy said.

And yet, over several weeks of conversations with Bryon and Julie, he became convinced. There was something different about this couple – a sincerity, a raw determination to put the past behind them and to seek some sort of redemption.

In March 2007 Roy and an assistant flew to Michigan. Roy still marvels at the memory of the guy with the freakish face walking out to greet them, wearing a “World’s Greatest Dad” sweat shirt, holding his baby boy in one arm while a little girl clung to his other one.

Over the next few days they got to see the suffering Bryon was going through. They listened in horror when he told them he was considering using acid on his face. “He was in a bad place,” Roy said. “This was a guy who was fighting for his life.”

Widner shared information about the structure of various skinhead groups, the different forms of probation in some gangs, the hierarchy of others. He agreed to speak at the SPLC’s annual Skinhead Intelligence Network conference, which draws police from all over the country.

For his part, Roy promised to ask his organization to do something it had never done before – search for a donor to pay for Widner’s tattoos to be surgically removed. Widner didn’t hold out much hope. But for now, he agreed not to experiment with acid.

Financially and emotionally, things were getting tougher. Widner found part-time work shoveling snow and odd handyman jobs, but barely enough to support a family. The vicious postings on the Internet continued. Pig manure was dumped on their cars. There were hang-up calls in the middle of the night. Anonymous callers left threatening messages: “You will die.” Several times, tipped off by sympathetic friends that a crew was on the way to “take care” of them, the family fled to a hotel.

So when Roy called a couple of months later saying a donor was willing to pay for the surgery, Widner could hardly believe it. The donor, a longtime supporter of the SPLC had been moved by Widner’s story – and shocked by photographs of his face.

“For him to have any chance in life and do good,” she said, “I knew those tattoos had to come off.”

She agreed to fund the surgeries – at a cost of approximately $35,000 – on several conditions. She wanted to remain anonymous. She wanted assurances that Bryon would get his GED, would go into counseling and would pursue either a college education or a trade.

It was easy to agree. These were all things Widner wanted to do.

It would take up to a year to find the right doctors and schedule the operations. Meanwhile, it was clear the family had to leave Michigan. The white power Web forums were wild with chatter about the race traitor couple and their family. Through local police, the FBI warned that they were in danger.

In the spring of 2008 they packed their belongings and moved to Tennessee, near Julie’s father. They rented a three-bedroom house in the country, joined a church. Helped by his father-in-law and his pastor, Widner found some work. The threats subsided.

Dr. Bruce Shack, who chairs the Department of Plastic Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, vividly remembers the first time he met Widner. After seeing photographs and talking to the SPLC, he had agreed to do the surgery. But he was totally unprepared for Widner’s face.

“This wasn’t just a few tattoos,” he said. “This was an entire canvas.”

It was June 2009 and the couple had driven to Vanderbilt to meet him. Shack’s genial manner immediately put them at ease.

“He didn’t just see the tattoos,” Widner says. “He saw me as a real human being.”

Shack also saw one of the biggest challenges of his career.

Shack showed Widner the laser – which looks like a long, fat pen – that would trace the exact outline of the tattoos as it burned them off his face. He explained how it would deliver short bursts of energy, different amounts depending on the color and depth of the tattoo. It would take many sessions for the ink to fade. And it would be painful, far more painful than getting the tattoos in the first place.

“You are going to feel like you have the worst sunburn in the world, your face will swell up like a prizefighter, but it will eventually heal,” Shack told Widner. “This is not going to be any fun. But if you are willing to do it, I’m willing to help.”

Widner didn’t hesitate. “I have to do it,” he said, as Julie held his hand. “I am never going to live a normal life unless I do.”

On June 22, 2009, Widner lay on an operating table, his mind spinning with anxiety and hope. A nurse dabbed numbing gel all over his face. Shack towered over him in protective goggles and injected a local anesthetic. Then he started jabbing Widner’s skin, the laser making a staccato rat-tat-tat sound as it burned through his flesh.

Widner had never felt such pain. Not all the times he had suffered black eyes and lost teeth in bar brawls, not the time in jail when guards – for fun – locked him up with a group of black inmates in order to see him taken down. His face swelled up in a burning rage, his eyes were black and puffy, his hands looked like blistered boxing gloves. He had never felt so helpless or so miserable.

“I was real whiny during that time,” he says.

“He was real brave,” says Julie.

After a couple of sessions, Shack decided that Widner was in too much pain: The only way to continue was to put him under general anesthetic for every operation. It was also clear that the removal was going to take far longer than the seven or eight sessions he had originally anticipated.

They developed a routine. Every few weeks, Widner would spend about an hour and a half in surgery and another hour in recovery, while Julie would fuss and fret and try to summon the strength to hide her fears and smile at the bruised, battered husband she drove home. It would often take days for the burns and oozing blisters to subside.

Shack and his team marveled at Widner’s determination and endurance. The Widners marveled at the team’s level of commitment and care. Even nurses who were initially intimidated by Widner’s looks found themselves growing fond of the stubborn former skinhead and his young family.

Slowly – far more slowly than Widner had hoped – the tattoos began to fade. In all he underwent 25 surgeries over the course of 16 months, on his face, neck and hands.

On Oct. 22, 2010, the day of the final operation, Shack hugged Julie and shook hands with Bryon. Removing the tattoos, he said, had been one of his greatest honors as a surgeon. But a greater privilege was getting to know them.

“Anyone who is prepared to put himself through this is bound to do something good with his life,” Shack said.

In a comfortable yard in a tidy suburban subdivision, Bryon and Julie Widner smoke Marlboros and sip energy drinks as they contemplate the newest chapter in their lives. Only a few trusted friends and family members know where they live – they agreed to be interviewed on condition that the location of their new home not be disclosed.

This time, they moved because they had deliberately exposed themselves to danger. After much consideration, the couple had agreed to allow an MSNBC film crew to follow Widner through his surgeries. The cameras didn’t spare the details, capturing Widner writhing and moaning in agony. Widner didn’t care. If anything he felt that he deserved the pain and the public humiliation as a kind of penance for all the hurt he had caused over the years.

But there was a deeper motivation for going public with his story. There was a chance that some angry young teenager on the verge of becoming a skinhead would see Widner’s suffering and think twice.

Maybe he would realize that, as Widner says now, “I wasn’t on any great mission for the white race. I was just a thug.”

They moved the day after the documentary – “Erasing Hate” – aired in June.

Widner’s arms and torso are still extensively tattooed. He is in the process of inking over the “political” ones, like the Nazi lightning bolts. His face is clean and scar free, and he has a shock of thick black hair. With his thin glasses and studious expression, he looks nerdy, Julie jokes.

His neck and hands have suffered some pigment damage, he gets frequent migraine headaches and he has to stay out of the sun. But, he says, “it’s a small price to pay for being human again.”

The move took a financial toll. Julie had to pawn her wedding ring to buy groceries and pay the rent. But Widner has found some work – construction and tattoo jobs. He got his GED and they both plan to start courses at the local community college.

They say they feel safe. Several police officers and firefighters live nearby; the FBI has visited and the local police know their story.

Still they can’t help but worry. It’s one thing getting out of the white power movement as others have done, fading into obscurity. It’s another to publicly denounce the violent world they once inhabited.

In the latest contentious episode of Terry’s career, video posted on the Internet appeared to show Terry directing a racial slur at Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during Sunday’s game.

QPR assessed the matter for two days before turning to The English Football Association.

The FA said in a statement it has received a “complaint relating to an alleged incident of racist abuse” during the game and will look into it. The Metropolitan Police also said it was “notified of an incident” that is being “assessed.”

QPR chairman Tony Fernandes said “we will provide our players with our unequivocal support when alleged incidents like this occur.”

Terry said the phrase the footage appeared to show him saying was being taken out of context.

“I thought Anton was accusing me of using a racist slur against him,” he said after the match. “I responded aggressively, saying that I never used that term.”

After the FA investigation was opened, Terry released a statement saying he welcomed the inquiry and looked forward “to clearing my name as soon as possible.”

The complaint came during English soccer’s anti-racism week, which highlights the progress made since abuse marred the game in the 1970s and ’80s. And it came just a week after the FA started an investigation into whether Liverpool striker Luis Suarez racially abused Manchester United’s black defender Patrice Evra during a Premier League game.

“This is worrying and potentially very damaging,” said Herman Ouseley, chairman of English soccer’s anti-racism group, Kick It Out. “What happens at the top end of the game has an impact at grass-roots level and at parks pitches across the country.”

The issue could again throw into question Terry’s suitability as England captain. He regained the armband only this year after being stripped of it by England manager Fabio Capello in February 2010. He allegedly had an affair with the former girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, then his teammate with Chelsea and the national team.

Rio Ferdinand, the older brother of Anton and Terry’s longtime defense partner for England, took over as captain only to relinquish the position 13 months later.

Terry also was fined by the club after he and three teammates drunkenly abused American guests at a hotel the day after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Their rhetoric reads as such: If a Black man can get elected why not a white supremacist? It’s a question being asked by a growing list of white-power candidates from around the country. This new crop of bigots—some blatant, others more nuanced—characterize America’s collection of racist politicians.

We scanned the spectrum to offers a short list of legislators and officials whose bigoted comments and/or allegiance to racist organizations shed light the current state of political bigotry.

1. Former Louisiana State Rep. David Duke

David Duke may be the most unabashed racist bigot to make a name in American politics. A self-described “racial realist,” Duke was the former Grand Wizard of the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which he founded in 1974.  A well-groomed and professional Klansman who wore a business suit instead of the Klan’s traditional white robes, Duke entered politics in 1975 when he ran for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat. After his unsuccessful Senate campaign and later an aborted presidential run, Duke formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) to shed himself of the Klan tag. In 1988, Duke changed his political affiliation for Democrat to Republican. A year later, he mounted a successful run in the special election for a vacated Louisiana House seat. Duke served in Congress from 1990 to 1992. Duke’s legacy will forever be marked by his stance against both legal and illegal immigration, his support of Holocaust deniers, his labeling of the Ku Klux Kan as “pro-white” rather than anti-Black. Earlier this year, Duke announced that he is considering running in the 2012 presidential election.

2. Arkansas State Rep. Loy Mauch

Mauch, a former head of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, proved the present day political clout of white supremacists, winning a seat last year in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Never one to back away from his white supremacist views, Mauch declared the Confederate flag a symbol of Jesus Christ, and has even said he believes Abraham Lincoln did not follow the Constitution.  As late as 2005, Mauch was listed as the chairman of an Arkansas chapter of the League of the South, a neo-Confederate organization that advocates for the second secession of the south and for a society dominated by white rule.

3. Mississippi State Rep. John Moore

Elected to the House of Representative in, John Moore has called civil rights a “philosophical idea” about “one group of people,” and has advocated against it a bill to make teaching civil rights mandatory in Mississippi schools. Moore has also given speeches at various rally sponsored by the Council of Conservative Christians, a group that has worked hard to deny its racist sentiments, but who the Republican National Committee has openly condemned in 1999 and that the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as a crudely white supremacist group whose website has run pictures comparing pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape and referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity.” Moore has defended his affiliation with the group saying he felt “very comfortable” meeting with the group’s members.

4. Minnesota State Rep. Michele Bachmann

Although Bachmann has not been linked to any white supremacist groups, she’s among a new crop of political bigots who blur the line between blatant racists and those who understand the art of concealing their ideologies.  Despite not being an unabashed bigot, Bachmann’s Tea Party affiliation, the party’s questionable record on race and numerous racial gaffes have prompted many to see her as a racist conservative.  Earlier this year Bachmann endorsed a pledge that claimed Black families were better off during slavery. She also railed against a government settlement paid to Black framers, who claimed the federal government discriminated against them for decades. In another instance she claimed,  “Not are cultures are equal, not all values all equal.” And she consistently panders to the racially based economic fears saying America might suffer conditions comparable to Africa. Overlooking a number of suffering economies, Bachmann said we may be the next ‘Zimbabwe.”

5. Texas Governor Rick Perry

Like Bachmann, Rick Perry is an ambiguous bigots whose records and affiliations are not blatant enough to call him racist, yet the racist tone of his politics straddles the line. Just recently, Perry came under fire after it was learned that his family’s leased hunting compound in West Texas was named “Niggerhead Ranch.” Perry’s racist tag also has much to do with his relationship with Karl Rove, whose political mentor was Lee Atwater — the master of Southern racial politics known infamously for crafting the 1988 Willie Horton attack ad on the Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. The Perry-Rove connection also draws racist claims as Rove has become known for his part in what many call a targeted effort to eliminate thousands of votes among black and elderly voters in the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Perry also openly embraced and defended the Confederate flag when the NAACP campaigned to remove the flag from statehouses and other government buildings across the South. Then lieutenant governor of Texas, Perry said the flags should not be removed and that Texans “should never forget our history.”

These products are becoming more and more noticeable as more African Americans travel to China on business.

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The Grio reports:

What is “n-word-oil”? Well, it turns out that this medicinal remedy is for muscle pain and a host of other ailments the Chinese have been using for a very long time. It’s ubiquitous in Chinese medicine shops worldwide, including in the U.S.

Another product — a tanning oil — also is known as “n-word oil” in Chinese. I asked a Chinese friend, who’s 53, about this oil and he hadn’t heard of it. In fact, he didn’t believe it was called that until I showed him the picture, and he said he found the name offensive, and that if blacks knew about it they would find it very offensive.

Read More At The Grio

“F— racism, f— the pigs who killed Andries Tatane, f— the AWB,” Esterhuysen said in the audio. He ended his 41-second rant promoting his blog (markesterhuysen.blogspot.com), Twitter, and Facebook accounts.

Esterhuysen, who described himself as an “Enemy of the state” and “Defender of Anarchy” on Twitter, tweeted Wednesday he would be posting a statement about his outburst soon.

Read more at the New York Daily News.

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The large number of people trying to post their “controversial opinions” forced Reddit administrators to take down the thread. Many of the controversial opinions were either racist or misogynist.

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Racism Is Still Alive And Well In Online Comment Sections

Gawker reports:

* half the black people in my area are lazy complainers – it’s especially annoying to have them complain about Mexicans who work their asses off and get no aid while the black people get wellfare, food stamps, and free housing because they keep popping out babies. Note, this is for my area, where this is common practice, I have no idea how it is in other places… most women who claim to want equal rights are full of shit; saying they can have the same jobs yet roll their eyes at stay at home dads, say that it’s unfair for guys to hit girls, etc.

In the community’s defense, there are Redditors out there attempting to correct, reason with, and make fun of these people. But they’re losing the battle. All of those comments were among the top-voted in the thread (described as “best” by the site’s algorithm). We’d love to have arranged the thread comments by “controversial” instead—as one Redditor put it, ‘if you want to actually read something controversial, sort this thread by controversial. If you want to keep on with the “things we redditors believe because we’re so much more enlightened than the rest of society’ circlejerk, sort this thread by best”—but, well, the thread is still blocked while frenzied Redditors cool off.

Read More At Gawker

It has become even more of a hot topic for how the Associated Press spelled “complaining” in the headline of the story.

The AP wrote “complainin” with a dropped g.

Now, the debate amongst many is was the AP’s dropped g racist?

On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama’s speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did–specifically including the “dropped g’s.”

Via the AP version:

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

Read more at Yahoo

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