Racist Comments

I just read this article by Field Negro about why he doesn't delete racist comments from his blog. And trust me, some of those comments are impressively racist.

"Those trolls could be your neighbor, your co-worker, or even the person you set next to in church . . . far too many of you so called progressive thinking people have been fooled into thinking that A-merry-ca is this forward thinking place full of enlightened people . . . The real A-merry-ca is a place filled with the kind of folks you see commenting on this web site on a daily basis. The real A-merry-ca is full of envy,hate, and "color aroused" angst brought on by ignorance and prejudice . . . me blocking their comments won't change how they feel in their hearts or how A-merry-cans, in general, feel about you and me."

A bee in my bonnet

There are a couple of things on the news these days that make me yell wildly at the tv, ranting like a crazy person.


The story of Trayvon Martin, the black teenager, unarmed except for a pack of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea, who was shot by neighbourhood watch capitan George Zimmerman. Zimmerman claims that he shot Martin in self defence and has yet to be charged, the authorities in this case failing to realise that self-defence is an argument to be made in court after being charged, not an argument to prevent being charged in the first place. The dearth of reporting on this case in its first few weeks is appalling. It is only now that the FBI are getting involved that the news is hitting the mainstream media, despite the incident happening in February.


The other story that gets my goat is the new legislation around abortion and mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds in the American South. Nothing says it better than these Doonesbury cartoons, which have been banned by some news outlets. Similarly I get enraged when I hear arguments as to why women working for Catholic institutions in the USA shouldn't be entitled to free contraceptives as part of their insurance package. What has happened to women's rights?


Women "have settled for a cheap, knock-off version of gender revolution. Instead of equality at work and in the home, we settled for "choice", "flexibility" and an exciting array of badly paid part-time work to fit around childcare and chores." This article hits the nail on the head, explaining why we should get angry, fight back, take a stand.

Friday Fling - The Best Articles I've Read This Week

Just one link this week, but it's a long one! Check out this New York Times article on How Companies Learn Your Secrets. Creepy yet interesting.

Friday Fling - The best Articles I've Read This Week

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted one of these - for some reason I haven't found much of interest on the tubes recently. Could I be looking in the wrong places?

Anyway, on to a few articles I've enjoyed this week:

• Anthropological theories on human nature over at Living Anthropologically
• And an interesting look at domestic violence from pop-culture site Mamapop

Friday Fling - The best Articles I've Read This Week

Here are some articles I've enjoyed this week:

• An anthropological look at the Paleo diet at 13.7
• Why the Chinese save from Foreign Policy
• Links between prejudice and intelligence over at Field Negro 

So, what have I missed?

Friday Fling - The best Articles I've Read This Week

Here are some of articles I've enjoyed most this week.

• Politicians stating the obvious over at Eurasian Sensation
• Inappropriate puns at Native Appropriations
• The benefits of Wikipedia at Savage Minds

Have you read anything particularly interesting? Feel free to share in the comments.