buried deep in the pits of his heart

[lotesse]

things that are making me want to ragequit the universe, racism edition:

The Economist thinks that slavery was a perfectly cromulent economic strategy, the City of Ferguson thinks that an all-white PR firm is just what they need right now, and white teachers in the New York City public schools seem to be of the opinion that wearing t-shirts in support of the NYPD isn't a massive fucking betrayal of their students of color, a clear sign that the halls of public education aren't for Black children or their police-brutality-resultant trauma.

Comments

[gwyneira]

I notice that the Economist has now put up an apology and retraction, but yeah, horrifying/boggling that they published the review in the first place.

[lotesse]

Especially with white privilege stuff, I'm pretty over retractions as being of any use whatsoever - the poison's already been dropped.

Genuine measures of reparation, a teach-in, a special issue dedicated to responses, a DONATION - but you don't get to engage in this sort of massive epistemic violence and then just take it all back, whoops, nothing to see here.

[gwyneira]

Absolutely agreed.

[kyriacarlisle]

Seriously. No one who read it before publication was the least bit dubious (enraged, horrified, appalled) before publication?

[lotesse]

Leah Finnegan over at Gawker has tracked down other Economist book reviews with similar arguments about the need to present slavery in a "fair and balanced" way, so I'm guessing that no, no one was.

[kyriacarlisle]

Ewwwwwwww.