As a past date lab participant, I want to vomit every time this beaten to death subject arises. Luckily none of the above mentions my particular article, but I have to chime in. As with any reporting, as I’m sure Ms. Hess knows, the interview process which took about an hour and a half over two days was boiled down to about 45 seconds worth of quotes pieced together to make an ‘interesting’ story.

Most questions are fairly run of the mill to try to get a dialogue going (what did you do before the date? How did you feel about blah blah blah), but a fair number were very specific and in hindsight an attempt to lead the interviewees toward a particular topic. I recall being told that a certain application question answer was used to set us up, and was asked if I was happy with the looks and race of the date since they thought he would be ‘my type’ . . . then the interviewer linked my response to this question to a totally separate one in which she asked me to describe in detail what my date looked like physically ‘because she hadn’t seen photos yet.’

Yes, obviously in retrospect after reading the final product I should have foreseen this, but at the same time it’s kind of ridiculous of readers to take these stories as truth and divine prejudice/racism/whatever. Maybe, City Paper, if this is newsworthy, you should create a better date lab type column? Or highlight something actually new and different for a change?

Interesting. Any eager applicants for the Washington City Paper's Race Lab?

So how many local Date Lab daters discriminate based on skin color? Plenty! A brief history:

A lot of daters set up by the Washington Post just don't want to date white people. Set up last March, professor Steven Kelts requested anyone but a white lady: He asked for "An Asian, Indian, Latino or black woman who is educated, likes to talk about ideas and wants to travel the world with me!" Another dater told Date Lab, “I tend to like girls that show signs of being foreign-born or maybe have something ethnically awesome about their looks.” Sadly, the Post matched him with a woman with a “Midwestern” appearance.

Other daters are looking to date exclusively white. In 2009, Patrick Chang stated a preference for “Tall, Caucasian women." Unfortunately, his date told the magazine this: “I tend not to find Asians attractive." When she met Chang, "With a name like Patrick I was kind of expecting an Irish guy," she admitted. "I tried to be as open-minded as possible." The pair declined to pursue a second date.

Chang's date isn't the only one to nix the entire continent: In one 2008 date, both Asian daters didn't date Asians. "I thought he was attractive and well put together, but you always have to end it with 'for an Asian guy,'" Stephanie Villaflor told the Post. "I don't usually date Asian guys." Her date, Christopher Dum, admitted: "I've only really dated white girls." Daters are generally open about their intra-racial racism: In 2006, a half-Filipino, half-Indian guy revealed a prejudice against Indian women—he finds them “a little snobby.”

Most racial preferences are aired out of disappointment—when the date who arrives is a little too white or a little too Indian. But sometimes, racial preference makes a match. Son Vang told the paper his date has "gotta be Asian, preferably Vietnamese." When Caroline T. Nguyen arrived, "I wasn't sure if my date was going to be Asian, so I was pleasantly surprised when she was," he said. Later, Vang told the paper: "At first we were trying to figure out why The Post set us up. We thought it might be the Asian thing." They hit it off.

Dater prejudice isn't limited to race, of course. After being set up with a man who uses a wheelchair, one dater reported being “really mad” at Date Lab for refraining from disclosing her date's disability prior to the meeting. “I felt like I was set up . . . I'd look like a jerk, and he'd just be ‘the handicapped guy,’" she told Date Lab. "I also didn't think it was fair to him—what if I had turned out to be a mean, tactless person?” What if.

For the record: Date Lab's gays daters can be prejudiced, too. “He's attractive, but [he has] this whole aura [of] your basic white guy,” Bob Baden said of his 2008 same-sex date. “I go for a more ethnic or foreign look.”

A report by Washington City Paper intern and "Buttman" trial correspondent Juliana Brint:

The story of how 14 D.C. jurors came to spend 50 minutes viewing a parade of hardcore erotic milk enemas from the jury box begins with the pornographic discretion of FBI Special Agent Dan Bradley.

In December 2007, Bradley—using a fictitious name, credit card number, and address–ordered copies of Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice from the website EvilAngel.com to a location inside the District of Columbia. John "Buttman" Stagliano, accused of filling Bradley's order, now stands trial for obscenity charges in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

So how did Bradley decide which of EvilAngel.com's hundreds of porn titles to purchase? "Looking at the covers [on the website], it appeared that those movies emphasized the excretory function and squirting, so that's why I ordered them," Bradley testified yesterday.

Deciding the DVDs—along with an online trailer for Belladonna: Fetish Fanatic 5—were crude enough to justify obscenity charges, the government indicted Stagliano for "transportation of obscene matters for sale or distribution" and "engaging in the business of selling or transferring obscene matter" in 2008.

Two years later, District Court Judge Richard Leon was left with deciding just how many milk enemas the jury should be made to watch during the trial. Stagliano's lawyers motioned to make the jury watch the entire five-and-a-half-hours of prosecuted material during the proceedings. Leon ruled against them, arguing that as long as the whole works were admitted as evidence and available in the jury room, there was no need to show all of them in the courtroom.

"A work need not be viewed in its entirety to be judged on the whole," Leon ruled.

Leon then went on to dictate how exactly the evidence would be presented during the trial—to both the jury and the audience of about 50 who came along for the viewing yesterday.

Before starting the porn, court officials examined the IDs of everyone in attendance to verify that they were over the age of 18. Prosecutors briefly fumbled with the DVD system—the jury caught an extra scene of two women making out in cat costumes—before arriving at the main event. Milk Nymphos was screened on two large televisions, one on each side of the jury box. While it was certainly possible to catch the on-screen action from many angles in the public viewing area, it was clear that the material was intended for inspection by the jury, not the audience. This point was reinforced by Leon's decision to play audio through Court-issued headsets, which members of the public were not provided. (Leon made a slight exception for the press, issuing two headsets to be shared among the several reporters present).

Without headsets, the public missed one of the most interesting aspects of the scene that the prosecution decided to show—the repeated use of racial slurs.

The 50-minute-long Milk Nymphos scene involves two white female performers, one black male performer, and a whole lot of milk entering and exiting various orifices. One of the female performers repeatedly refers to her male co-star as a "nigger," declaring, for example, "Come on you nigger, fuck me in the ass," and imploring the other female performer to "look in his eyes when you suck his nigger cock."

Rarely has dialog been so central to the reception of a hardcore pornographic film. But are the epithets enough to convince jurors that the film's anal milk fountains "cross the line" into obscenity? If the prosecution was hoping the slurs would get a rise out of the jurors—11 of 14 of whom are black—it was unclear whether they succeeded. Although some of the jurors seemed to flinch at the epithets and a few removed their headsets well before the end of the film, there were few signals of outright disgust. After 50 minutes of milk play, the group generally looked more tired than scandalized.

Let's hope they got some rest: When the trial reconvenes today at 10 a.m., the prosecution promises to show significant excerpts from Storm Squirters 2: Target Practice.

Photo via Gravityx9, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Happy birthday, "post-racial America"! Writing in the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker does not see race. In response to criticism that calling Barack Obama the first woman president was (among other things) racist, Parker pens a column explaining that she can't write racist things, because she is white, and white people have the luxury of not being racist, like black people are:

But I also recognize that my life experience is different from that of most African Americans. And that experience allows me both the luxury of seeing people without the lens of race, but also (sometimes) to fail to imagine how people of other backgrounds might interpret my words.

She also has trouble seeing Obama as "exclusively black" because she has learned that she and the President are eighth cousins once removed—a genealogical "nugget" she had previously intended to write an entire column about.  That detail alone strikes me as a fireable offense.

* Via Figleaf: Holly at The Pervocracy on the douchebaggery behind calling women "females":

I hate it when people call women "females." I have one friend who does it because she was in the military and it was standard practice there, and occasionally I'll say it when I specifically mean biological females rather than women, but 98% of the time it's douchebaggery. Rule of thumb: if you say "females and males" it's okay, but if you say "females and guys/men," you're probably a douchebag.

* Virginia resident Andrea examines U.S. immigration laws through the lens of her attempts to get her British fiancee a visa. In short, they have it easy, and they still don't have it easy:

One of the things I hear a lot in any discussion of people who come here illegally is some permutation of “Well why don’t they just do it legally?” If they know that I’m currently going through the immigration process with my fiance, people will often ask “Doesn’t it make you mad that you’re going to all this trouble and people are just coming over here illegally?” The answers to these questions are, in reverse order, “No, I am thankful that we are able to do it legally fairly easily” and “Wow, you have never dealt with immigration, have you?”

* In Newsweek, Julia Baird tells us to "stop ogling Republican women":

It’s odd to see how some men insist that when women start to grasp power, we should think of them primarily as playthings and provocateurs. Is this the best way to explain their success? They aren’t challenging the status quo. They’re being wild! They’re not trying to lift the ban on offshore drilling. They’re being naughty! When four women beat a field of men on the same night recently, competing for primary and gubernatorial nominations, it was widely referred to as “ladies’ night.” Aren’t ladies’ nights those promotions where women are allowed free entry into bars to provide fodder for the men?

* Scarleteen continues its "queering sexuality in color" series, this time with Dharshi, a 25-year-old South Asian lesbian:

The problem is that the queer community where I live is predominantly white, and tend not have familiarity with issues such as my marriage predicament. Sometimes I do feel pressure from the queer community to come out, as if that will be the solution to all of my problems. I do have some wonderful white gay and lesbian friends though who make an effort to listen and understand. One woman in particular is my mother's age and her advice and sharing of her life experience has really helped me through the hard times. Also when I watch her with her partner and her kids, I feel optimistic that maybe that kind of future is also possible for me. I love meeting other queer people of colour, particularly from the South Asian community, but I don't often get this opportunity.

Photo via Beverley & Pack, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Three Georgetown students (and another from NYU) have launched WorstHookUps.com, a website for anonymously airing your greatest sex fails. “After a traumatizing hookup experience, [we] looked for a place to post the story online and realized that no such website existed," a site creator (they won't reveal their names) told Chris Heller at Vox Populi. Of course, some of the entries are horrifying for all the wrong reasons—like this one, in which our anonymous contributor complains about hooking up with an "older black woman" whose breasts he describes as "straight-up National Geographic shit." The hook-up takes a turn for the worse when she expects him to help her orgasm, and employs a vibrator in this pursuit. Also? This "older black woman" is 27 years old.

Photo via rachelkramerbussel.com, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

According to a Gallup telephone poll conducted in 2006, "only" 27 percent of Americans would not like to live near "homosexual" neighbors. (No word on American attitudes toward neighbors who are simply "gay."). That figure is down from 30 percent homosexual-neighbor-intolerance in 1995 and 38 percent intolerance in 1990. Americans still dislike gay neighbors more than they dislike Muslim and immigrant neighbors, though that's changing! From 1995 to 2006, American dislike of Muslim neighbors jumped 10 percentage points; dislike of foreign neighbors jumped 9. [Via Racialicious].

* Via SAFER Campus, Iowa's Grinnell College has responded to concerns about racist and misogynistic views expressed by students at a jello-heavy, cunnilingus-themed party. The upside: This is not the last time "cunnilingus" will appear on this blog today!

* Former Politico scribe Helena Andrews pens an essay about her frustration at only being set up with black men:

"I've got a guy for you. He's so hot, it's perfect." It was the spring of '08 when Maureen Dowd, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, decided to take it upon herself to find me a man—specifically, Reggie Love, Barack Obama's "body guy" (read: personal aide). Standing outside the auditorium in Philadelphia where Obama the candidate had just given his loaded race speech, I thought to myself, How could a woman I'd helped with a computer problem once as an assistant at the Times spot the man for me? "Don't be silly," she said, when I demurred. "My assistant will set it up."

. . . It was clear that Reggie and I had just two things in common: We're black and we have bachelor's degrees.

* Fishbowl D.C. then dispenses white editor Betsy Rothstein to mock Andrews for pointing out the racist undertones of a white woman she barely knows declaring her a "perfect" fit with some guy, because they're both black. Rothstein concludes her mockery by pointing out that Andrews was once photographed next to a black dog. A commenter responds: "Maybe you guys should stick to wishing white folks happy birthday."

* Even Bill O'Reilly thinks drawing conclusions about sexual orientation based on former softball involvement is ridiculous:

[youtube:v=kSyOEnerVQc]

* Via Feministing: Newsweek on why Yeardley Love "couldn't have gotten a restraining order if she wanted to."

Photo via stevendepolo, Creative Commons License 2.0

* Writing in the Awl's Sex Offender week series, Sady Doyle goes long on Rivers Cuomo and why he (and his cute glasses) have messed you up "forever."

* In an attempt to disprove the allegation that teabaggers employed racial slurs against black members of Congress at a rally, Andrew Beibart has agreed to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if anyone can produce "video and audio evidence that this occurred." Somehow, none of the accused racists attending this rally have stepped forward to donate a bunch of money to this organization. Hmm!

* Is Dita Von Teese a feminist? The answer is complicated, according to this interview with the burlesque performer:

Hmmm. Well, it’s a question that’s posed to me quite often and it’s frustrating, because if you look at the definition of what it means to be a feminist, it’s to have the same rights as a man. If someone tells me that I cannot create, produce, direct these shows and star in them, that that should be for a man should do, then that doesn’t really jive with feminist ideals. It’s kind of an argument I hate even addressing because I think it’s just a stupid thing to ask. I’m sorry, but you know, I get asked it all the time! I’m, like, how can I be anti-feminist if I’m pro-woman and all my fans are women, so if you say it’s anti-feminist and you come to my show, or you come to one of my book signings, and it’s 80 percent women, how do you explain that means being an anti-feminist? A lot of women look to me as someone who is embracing her sexual power and confidence and trying to explain you don’t have to fit into the media’s mainstream image of “sexy.” I feel like the only time someone should call me “anti-feminist” is if they don’t understand what I do and who my fans are and what I’m standing up for. . . It’s not a word I don’t really like to address, you know? It’s not even that I want to call myself that, I just sort of go, “Oooooh!” It’s an eyeballer roller. (Laughs) You know what I mean? It’s like, oh man, it’s a weird question. The word “feminist” is so broad.

* Melissa McEwan tells Dr. Drew to shut up.

* Kate Harding takes down Peter Beinart's campaign to put a "mom" on the Supreme Court, in order to provide a role model for girls who want to snag one of the unlikeliest positions in American government, and also make babies. First point: There's already a mom on the Supreme Court!

Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida

Two important developments in the World of Men this week:

1. A group of scholars, led by a man with the almost suspiciously masculine name of Lionel Tiger, established a new discipline of gender studies: Male Studies. Male Studies differs from the already existing discipline of Men's Studies in that it is devoted to studying the "male as male," as opposed to the "male as Easter Bunny" or whatever Men's Studies is passing off as scholarly research nowadays. Also, Male Studies really fucking resents Women's Studies. Cage match, anyone?

2. Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, the preeminent scholar in the field of Lady Business Studies, invited some men to talk about their experiences for once. Sady's Visions of Manliness series (see A, B, and C) has addressed stuff like the simultaneous marginalization and privilege of trans men, ironically homophobic sports blogging, and how deeply Valentine's Day truly blows. Strangely, none of the posts are about how feminists have stolen their male identity, trampled upon their masculine phenomenon, and overall been super mean. In other words, this is total Men's Studies shit.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady and I YELL ABOUT THESE THINGS AND ALSO bell hooks SO JOIN US!

SADY: hello, Fellow Lady Person!

AMANDA: Why hello! I am prepared to speak about the experiences of . . . Men People.

SADY: About which I know, I will tell you, not a whole lot! Like, I have known Men People throughout my lifetime. Sometimes in the sense that they are related to me! Or friends! Or I have known them BIBLICALLY! But also, like, pursuant to the Liz Lemonism critique of Times Past, I feel like I am privileged in 99% of the ways that people can be privileged on this our planet Earth. And it frustrates me — and has been a schism in The Feminist History — that, as a lady who is so very fucking privileged, I'm allowed to concentrate so much on my own Oppression By The Man and not notice that some of The Men are going through their own bullshit.

AMANDA: Right. In the Oppression Olympics, I would not qualify for the finals. I would be disqualified in the first heat. I also am really no good with sports metaphors!

SADY: Well, The Man has staked his claim in those. BASICALLY WE NEED TO TAKE THE QUARTERBACK OF DISCOURSE TO THE GOAL NET OF DISCUSSION TO SCORE A HOME RUN HAT TRICK OF ANTI-OPPRESSION THEORY! Is my understanding.

AMANDA: I plan on blaming all of my deficiencies in forming metaphors, drawing conclusions, and overall making sense on my Oppression today. For the record.

SADY: I intuitively understand you, due to my woman's intuition. But, like, this is a long-standing Beef within the feminist community, in fact. Like, bell hooks covered it along with approximately everybody else.

AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, a distinction must be made between men and The Man.

SADY: Right. We oversimplify. And a ton of feminists have needed to clarify that "when we say 'men,' we mean the Platonic ideal of 'men!' The way 'men' are encouraged to behave and act and such!" And as a person who types the words 'dudes' and 'men' a lot, I am sympathetic. Because we DO need a word to denote all that junk. But, to revisit bell hooks for JUST A SECOND, here is how that works out in practice: Some white feminist ladies walk up to some ladies of color, and are like "join the cause, sister!" And the ladies of color are like, "sure, I've experienced sexism, let's go. On the way, can we talk about how you white ladies are enacting some bullshit that hurts me and also the men in my community?" And then the white ladies are like, "YOU ARE SO MALE-IDENTIFIED. WHY CAN'T YOU JOIN OUR GLORIOUS SISTERHOOD AND IDENTIFY AS A WOMAN FIRST."

AMANDA: Allow me to flip that dynamic around for a second, as I think the distinction between "Men's Studies" and the totally brand new discipline of "Male Studies" helps to illustrate that point. So, "Male Studies" just had its first conference on Wednesday, to declare "Male Studies" a thing, even though "Men's Studies" already exists and is welcoming of all who study men and masculinity. And the reason "Male Studies" has decided to branch off from "Men's Studies" is that Men's studies thinks too much about Women's Studies.

SADY: Oh, dear.

AMANDA: When there is just no reason to segregate these two studies, of course.

SADY: Well, unless you want to teach an entire seminar on barbecue grilling!

AMANDA: And I think feminism suffers from the impulse to segregate the experiences of people and treat our cultural systems (patriarchy, masculinity, femininity, race, class) as separate fields, and I think my work often suffers from that distinction, actually.

SADY: Well, I mean, to be honest, mine does, too. Mostly due to my vast narcissism, and the fact that I write mostly about my own experiences!

AMANDA: Right.

SADY: You could run over my foot with a shopping cart at the Costco, and I'd write this very ideological post that was like, "SHOPPING CART PRIVILEGE: Does It Lead You To Run Over My Foot, and Are You A Monster? Yes."

AMANDA: But it's a very tricky thing to attempt to write about the experiences of others, and that's why your masculinity series is so great! TIGER BEATDOWN PLUG!

SADY: Which is why I try to bring other people into the discussion.

AMANDA: But what about, in addition to bringing in these voices, also writing about issues that don't directly affect us and which we can't talk about from personal experience? I think it's important to do that too, but I think it's a lot trickier.

SADY: Right. And also, you have to be open to getting yelled at! Is my experience!

AMANDA: Agreed!

SADY: Because there's a big difference between "speaking about these things that do not affect me directly" and "speaking FOR these people who are having these experiences because I am A GENIUS and get your experience way better than you do." But, like, it is easy to cross the line?

AMANDA: Yeah. It is. And that's where the productive yelling comes in.

SADY: So you have to be a good listener, ESPECIALLY when people are yelling.

AMANDA: But, so, then I also sometimes get yelled at if I write about how something affects men? I get the "O but what about the menz!!!!!" comments. I don't know why it's written like an Internet cat is saying it, but it is. Even though I write about women a whole lot!

SADY: They are all basically internet cats, those dudes, though. Like, if you write a post about Vajazzling, to use a totally fictional example, and people are like, "did you know some dudes get CIRCUMSIZED??? Monstrous! Your vagina post has inspired me to talk about the ill fates of penises, instead, and at length!' Like, at a certain point, the "WHAT ABOUT ME" posts from dudes are just blatantly obnoxious, and blatantly intended to keep women from writing about their OWN experiences of manliness, ill or well.

AMANDA: Yeah. I have a good friend who is hurt that I don't write on the expectations on men to move furniture for girls.

SADY: OH MY GOD. OPPRESSION! I too am disappointed that you have not covered this topic Amanda! Also: Being asked to open pickle jars. WORSE THAN DEATH???

AMANDA: Well I'm waiting to roll out my big investigative series. On the possible lingering lower back problems.

SADY: "Once I Had To Carry Your Books Up Some Stairs: A Post About Traumatic Experiences, By A Dude."

AMANDA: But, I write about a lot of really minor shit that women are expected to do and about how these very little things are reminders of society's expectations of men and women. And a lot of times men get really pissed when I do that, too! For it is annoying to be forced to think about.

SADY: Right. I mean, here's the thing: I'm a lady who gets called out on my privilege. A lot. As I see it, my job description is: Write about lady stuff, try to remember not all ladies have exactly the same life as I do, listen when ladies with different lives are like "uh, you missed something." So the plague of dudes on the Internet who are like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN LADIES EXPERIENCE THINGS DIFFERENTLY THAN I DO, SOMETIMES NOT WELL?!???!" Like: I try to listen to people EVERY SINGLE DAY, dude, and I haven't actually had an aneurysm and died yet, so maybe it's not actually that fucking hard. You know? The Internet is not a thousand little knives stabbing you in the face. The Internet is some people talking. In conclusion, calm down.

AMANDA: Yeah. And that's when things get tough, for me, when we start talking about the experiences of men like that. Because it's so obvious how our culture is constructed to make guys like that never have to—and to actually avoid—listening to a woman's experience, just as it's constructed to help white people avoid listening to anyone else, and straight people, and cis people, &c.

SADY: Yeah. But then you have things like "Male Studies," where "The male as male will be permitted to appear in all his complexity as new values are being forged and traditional values that have proven the test of time are affirmed."

SADY: And I get the feeling those traditional values that have proven the test of time kind of involve OPPRESSING THE VAST MAJORITY OF MALES???

AMANDA: Yes. And that traditional man has always been permitted to appear. It's all the other men who haven't. But Male Studies cuts them out of the picture when it devotes itself to "males as males," as if we're only talking about one very clearly defined and biologically determined type of person.

SADY: Right. Because "the male as male" means cisgendered. It means straight. It means white. It means, like, a lot of shit! Actually! As it is commonly employed! Everybody else, if they can even get recognized as dudes, is treated in the discourse as, "well, okay, you're a dude. But a SUBSET of dude. We have trouble imagining you as a character on 'Mad Men,' so, like, clearly you're not a part of the glorious history of The Male As Male to the same extent." But here's the thing. The ominous thing that I always phrase in a manner that brings to mind, like, the James Cameron movie 'Aliens.'

AMANDA: Okay.

SADY: All of those dudes excluded from the discourse of Traditional Old-Fashioned-Swilling Wife-Cheating-On Empowered Non-Chest-Waxing Masculinity? And all of the ladies? Add it up. THERE ARE MORE OF US than there are of anyone else. Which is why we need to start fucking talking to each other more.

AMANDA: This reminds me more of that Beyonce song than Aliens, but I see what you're getting at.

SADY: Like, if we start looking at "masculinity" as this very exclusive concept that has all of these other concepts and privileges packed into it, then we get to my I Went To Liberal Arts College And Have Simplistic Ideas Place where, like... we can create a discourse without you, substantially, Ultimately Privileged People. If we can get over our own bullshit and have each others' backs, we can do a lot. And maybe this conversation needs to take place on THOSE terms. Provided you're okay with getting yelled at when you fuck it up. Also, I have had three beers, because it's hot. THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE SOBER!

AMANDA: NO IT WILL NOT. And I will fight to the death for men to gain the right to drink as much as women do without being labeled irresponsible sluts who deserve whatever is coming to them.

SADY: Yes! Also, that person who ran over my foot in the Costco: A MONSTER. I think we need to centralize this issue. Because that hurt.

AMANDA: Kumbayah!

Photo via George Eastman House

Did ya'll watch C-SPAN last night? The Republican strategy of frantically burying their racist and classist rhetoric under a protective shield of faux concern for unborn babies was in full, glorious display. Between the white dudes arguing that socialist health care reform will "enslave" the American people (inside) and the white dudes chanting racial epithets at black representatives (outside), I managed to catch this gem from Republican Indiana Rep. Mike Pence (above), who argued that supporting health care amounts to signing a devil's deal with Barack Obama, "the most pro-abortion president in American history."

Because even when the U.S. government explicitly states that it will continue to not fund abortions, Republicans just can't seem to let go of their major justification for denying health care to poor, uninsured Americans: their irrational hatred of women.

"Only in Washington, D.C. could you exchange the pro-life protections enshrined in the law for thirty years for a piece of paper signed by the most pro-abortion president in American history," Pence announced. Well, certainly Obama deserves some sort of award for this distinction! After two centuries of only mildly pro-abortion presidents, and wishy-washy presidents with no discernible views on abortion (I'm looking at you, Millard Fillmore), it's refreshing to finally find a president whose love for abortion can be definitively measured as more intense than the love for abortion held by the 43 men who came before him. I can just imagine Pence furiously calculating Obama's love for abortion, checking and re-checking the mathematics deep into the night in preparation for the health care debate: "multiply by amount of sorrow expressed at George Tiller's murder . . . divided by the cosine of Clinton's love for abortion . . . carry the two . . . my God! It is true!"

All of which is by way of saying, a friend made this commemorative online thingy, and I thought it was funny.

Signed, the most pro-abortion blogger to work in the 2300 block of Champlain St. NW in American history.

Why is the Superbowl commercial line-up, hailed as an achievement in advertising industry creativity, often so casually sexist, racist, and homophobic? Credit the watchful eye of the CBS Standards and Practices department, which ensures that Superbowl ads bring in millions of viewers looking to be shocked—without offending the delicate sensibilities of the American people.

In order to achieve this difficult balance, ad-makers are forced to play within a very small range of acceptably "outrageous" topics. Since casual sexism, racism, and homophobia are main sources of shock-jock humor—and since these attitudes are too pervasive to inspire true outrage in the average American—companies compete to put the most creative twist on the lazy stereotyping without going too far off the deep end. And so: CBS bans an ad that shows two gay men kissing, but greenlights several commercials that play off "gay" stuff for laughs. It bans an ad that shows a guy's head up his own ass, but lets fly a commercial that makes fun of those silly, backwards South Asians who answer your tech support calls (racism: officially less controversial than asses). Even the advertisement decried as the most "controversial" of the evening—college football superstar Tim Tebow's anti-abortion ad—concluded not with a politically controversial rallying call to life, but with Tebow totally sacking his own mother. That's gotta sting!

Some advertisers choose to side-step this paradigm, of course, with varying success (See: Cute farm animals in love; everyone has T-Pain's voice; coffin filled with Doritos). The ones that don't end up being mildly but reliably offensive, and extremely boring.

RACISM:

This was one of the only Superbowl ads I noticed that featured people of color. The other was a Doritos ad where a black man walked into his date's house, checked out her ass at length, and then received a firm slap in the face from his date's small child. In Superbowl ads, people of color are never employed to, say, return an Orca to the ocean after a wild bachelor party; they're just here to get some laughs out of racial stereotypes.

SEXISM:

Welcome female sports superhero Danica Patrick, who stars in the most Meta Controversial ad of the night. In this series of commercials for GoDaddy.com, Patrick is going around living her normal life—receiving massages, appearing on television news programs—when she unwittingly finds herself at the center of a "controversial" Superbowl ad. Wherever she goes, blonde ladies are just itching to take down their hair, rip off their shirts, and become the next scandalously hot Superbowl GoDaddy girl. This ad could have been a clever subversion of standard Superbowl bodice-ripping if Patrick's character had been allowed to point out how totally fucking weird this is. Instead, viewers are asked to head online to check out the even sexier action. Just a reminder that even women who excel in traditionally male fields (a girl who's really good at driving!) are still forced into traditionally female representation (boobs!).

Ah yes: the "men have turned into demoralized, overly feminine wusses who can only be saved by big machines that go RRRRARRRR" category. This ad, for the Dodge Charger, really opened my eyes, you guys: It really sucks to be a man, especially one in a serious relationship with a woman! (Seriously, guys, if it's this bad, just break up with us. We're not worth it). I have one question, though: Why are you carrying my lip-balm? As a member of the gender generally expected to carry an expansive purse instead of utilizing her limited pant pockets to store items, I have often carried this proverbial lipbalm for my significant other. And it has never been so traumatizing that I've been forced to shell out $30k for a Dodge Charger to heal the pain. But then again, I don't know what it's like to be forced to carry lipbalm as a man. I'm sure it's very tough.

Did you know that men are also extremely stupid? Men are only interested in beer, sports, and sex; women are from Venus.

[youtube:v=RrJnv2peeZw]

HOMOPHOBIA:

This ad subscribes to the same theory of gender as the Dodge Charger ad, but this time men can only be saved from their spineless, overly feminine lifestyles if they buy a hand-held television. Bonus: this ad is even clearer in its assertion that men who do anything attributed to the mysterious realm of "female shit" aren't true men. Change out of that skirt, Jason.

I believe that this Megan Fox ad contains the Superbowl's sole same-sex couple: Two guys who slap each other with dramatically limp wrists when they discover that one of them has been checking out Megan's sexy pix on the Internet. Apparently, gay men can only be represented in Superbowl ads in the pursuit of hilarity. We are truly living in a post-sexual-orientation America, people.

At first, this Careerbuilder.com ad was is headed firmly down the casual homophobia route: Naked dudes! Around other dudes! Touching their own nipples! But then a couple of underwear-clad female co-workers show up, and the ad refuses to go the aggressively heterosexual route with them. Careerbuilder.com actually reveals itself to be the rare Superbowl advertiser that doesn't exploit boobs for faux "sexy" controversy. Ah, the complexity of Superbowl ad politics.

"What do the 'N' word, the 'W' word and the 'F' word have in common?" asks Tim Bloedow of NoApologies.ca, a Web site dedicated to "punching a hole in political correctness." According to Bloedow, refusing to use these racial, sexist, and homophobic slurs (the 'F' word isn't fuck here) displays a "complete disregard for using God's name in vain."

Bloedow explains why refusing to invoke the "N" word, the "W" word, and the "F" word is insulting to the almighty. (Note: I won't use those words here, because I'm an atheist, but be warned: Bloedow is a man of God, so he gleefully invokes the three slurs throughout the video):

"The Third Commandment says don't take the name of a larger God in vain," he says. "As Christians, we see the Lord's name taken in vain everywhere—on the TV, in movies, in the news, in just about every area of life, as we walk down the street, among our colleagues. Constantly God's name—'God,' 'Jesus Christ,' are used as cuss words and nobody seems to blink an eye. Yet I've been very frustrated in the last couple of weeks as I've observed the self-censorship in our media over other areas of sensibility."

To recap: White dude in a sweater and a mustache who records himself announcing racial slurs over the Internet? The work of God. Saying "Oh my God, that Tim Bloedow dude appears to be a huge racist"? Sacrilege.

Every day in October, I'm been rollin' out the worst "sexy" Halloween costumes on the market this year. Now that we're two-thirds of our way to the big 31, the world's most offensive sexualized costumes have gained a few defenders. And they will be damned if I continue to insult their racist, sexist, and sizist pastimes! Let's hear what they have to say:

On the "Sexy Indian" costume:

Cara is concerned that pointing out racism may ruin Halloween for everyone (but particularly people who sell racist costumes!):

PLEASE! It’s halloween! Get over it! No one is trying to offend anyone, they are trying to sell costumes. Let it go and quit trying to bring down everyones holiday by disecting every stupid name and costume. If you don’t like it, don’t wear it.

On the "Sexy Anorexia" costume:

Cara is back to say that sexy costumes aren't even sexy—and also that you are all jealous of just how sexy they are:

I don’t really know what all the fuss is about. As much as I understand the Anna-rexia costume being absurd and wrong, you can’t judge these costumes as being slutty until you try them on. The costumes that the models are wearing are always made tighter, or shorter so they look ‘better’ in the photograph.

It sounds like someone is a little jealous. If you have a problem with the way these costumes look, why don’t you make something for yourself. Like a Moo Moo?

Even he "Sexy Fat Arab" costume has its defenders!

OverIt believes that the get-up serves a valuable public health function:

Perhaps if more people laughed at the morbidly obese, the United States wouldn’t be in the disgustingly fat shape it is now.

Cara, tireless defender of offensive holiday sexiness, insists that people don't wear racist costumes to be racist—they wear them to be funny!

I honestly think you blow things way out of proportion. I truly doubt the ‘racist’ guy is going to wear this. You are way over thinking all of these costumes.

Why would someone wear it? Because it looks funny, a guy in a fat suit.

I have seen frat guys wear costumes like this, and they do it to make there friends laugh, not to show their racist colors and bring down society. Why don’t you just live in a cave and never come out. Speaking of which, what are you going to be for Halloween? A skeloten is ’slutty’ and ‘anorexic.’ An indian (what my 5 year old niece wants to be, I guess shes racist). Would a ghost be disrespectful to the spirit world? How about a witch, or would we offend old people who live alone? How about a fruit, would that hurt the gays?

I mean, this is getting a little ridiculous.

Tucker Max's message board has launched a Photoshop competition for the best reimagined protest signs from the "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" protests. Creative Max devotees are working off images from the film tour's photostream in order to ridicule students from the NC State women's center, which staged a Raleigh protest of the film. Predictably, the submissions are sexist (above). Since this is a contest to ridicule people who care about rape, sexism is to be expected. So why are the submissions so racist?

You can view all of the submissions here. I agree with some of Max's defenders that "Tucker Max culture" encourages a hatred of pretty much everyone—not just women, fat women, or black people, but also white men who Max considers douchey. I don't agree, however, that it hates everyone equally.

Some of Max's fans have championed his committment to women's rights because he believes that "women should be able to make their own choices." Yes—Max believes that women should be allowed to choose just as much crazy drunken sex as he does. Except that when those women choose that path, they are publicly embarrassed, reduced to the size of their vaginas, and literally vomited upon for doing so, while Tucker Max is held up as a hero (albeit a hero who admits, jokingly or not, to hate himself).

But at least thin, white, able-bodied women are allowed that one choice: They can choose not to have sex, and be ignored; or they can choose to have as much sex as they want, and be labeled a "whore". As the Photoshop contest shows, fat women and black men and women aren't afforded that privilege among Max's fans: their size and race is reason enough to bring on the hate.

Bad news, parents: YOUR BABY IS PROBABLY A RACIST, and that means that you've got a whoooole lot of explaining to do. According to a Newsweek cover story, studies show that children as young as six months old "judge people based on skin color." And children as old as six years old will refuse to accept the possibility of a black Santa—but will eventually concede that "black Santa could fill in for White Santa if he was hurt." White people: Why are your widdle babies so racist?

a)  My kid isn't racist: We watch Sesame Street, and there are some very, very diverse Muppets on that program.

b) SHHHH! Don't say the R-A-C-E word around Jimmy! Everybody's equal, Jimmy. I'll explain that vague sentiment when you're older.

c)  Mall Santas.

d) As Sady of Tiger Beatdown and Amanda of the Sexist discussed in this week's edition of Sexist Beatdown: Uhh, maybe Newsweek is kind of exaggerating about the whole racist baby thing, since the real problem appears to be progressive hippie parents scared shitless about even raising the issue of race with their children. Okay, also mall Santas.

AMANDA: hey, racist baby.

SADY: hey there!

AMANDA: are you ready to discuss how modern equality-minded parents have all taken to blaming their latent racism on their impressionable young children?

SADY: ha, yes. the babies, they are all RACISTS! sort of. first of all, i think the very RACIST BABY tagline is kind of hilariously off, in that the actual "children as young as 6 months old discriminate on the basis of skin color" thing is, apparently, literally wrong. what children as young as 6 months old do is look longer at photos of people who are not the same race as their parents, according to the article. but, you know, that is not SENSATIONAL. so let's just imply with our headline that six-month-old white babies are already full of societally determined anger and hate.

AMANDA: but, importantly, it is also The Longer Gaze at People Who Are Not the Race of Their Parents That Shall Not Be Named. since the main parenting tactic unearthed in this story is: as long as I never mention race or racism, my child will come out unracist. to the point that some ostensibly nonracist parents DROPPED OUT OF THE STUDY when they found out they would be forced to discuss race with their children. "not under my roof."

SADY: yeah, exactly. and the result, apparently, IS that the four and five-year-olds end up with pretty fucked-up ideas about race.

AMANDA: and also, hilariously, report that they think their parents are racists, too

SADY: right. "do your parents like black people?" and 14% are like, "nope!" which makes sense, if the kids are getting shushed every time they ask about the existence of race. (1) They get the sense that race is a forbidden topic, and maybe therefore a Bad one, and may project their parents' fears of race discussion onto people of different races, concluding that THEY'RE what the parents are scared of. (Behold my extrapolation of in-no-way-expert conclusions!) (2) If you don't have someone TALKING about race, and pointing out the existence of racism and why it's bad, you're just left to soak up all the messed-up cultural stereotypes and racism like a little kindergarten-enrolled sponge.

AMANDA: yeah, and I think this points to a lot of the assumptions that these parents have about their children for no apparent reason. like Chris Brown's mom expressing shock that her child attacked his girlfriend, when that kind of thing was in the home and probably not addressed in any significant way. or parents insisting that their child would never rape someone, even though they failed to bring up in sex in any conversation. and I think this also goes back to the fear that, like, if you talk to boys about preventing rape, you somehow magically turn them rapists through the expectations you've laid out.

SADY: right. well, i think a lot of it is also the nature-vs.-culture thing, and this messed-up expectation we have that kids are inherently pure of all culture. like: if you never MENTION injustices, your kids won't be aware of them, and then they will somehow progress into childhood without ever noticing that people are treated differently and drawing their own conclusions about that! whereas the fact is that a large part of childhood is not only learning what your parents and teachers explicitly, verbally teach you, but getting socialized and learning to reflect the norms around you.

AMANDA: and it's such an obvious cop-out when you just state it like that. "I thought if I never MENTIONED why Santa was always white, my children would never shun the black Santa that entered their classroom." It doesn't make any sense! and so the burden of talking about this shit lies on the groups who are going to be most affected by it, which is why minority families talked about discrimination with their kids, and why girls get a shitload of advice on how not to get themselves raped.

SADY: right. exactly. it's about the comfort of privilege. like: kids who experience discrimination, on any level, are going to naturally bring it up with their parents, and parents are going to be more responsive to that. like, i think i was four years old when i first asked my parents why some people said certain things were not for girls, and why boys wouldn't let me do those things. (the things in question were pretending to be the Ninja Turtles* and/or soccer, but still, I THINK MY POINT HOLDS.) but if you ARE privileged, and you never directly experience discrimination, and all you have are these vague messages that certain aspects of your life (like, say, your race) are Not To Be Talked About, you're of course going to grow up completely blind to your own privilege and also unreflectively participating in it.

AMANDA: yeah, and another interesting thing that separates race from gender is that, if you're a girl, and you play the best fucking Raphael on the block, boys on your street may have the opportunity to recognize that and understand that girls can play Ninja Turtles. but if you think that Hispanic kids can't play Ninja Turtles – stay with me here – and you don't have any Hispanic kids on your block, you may grow up always assuming that Hispanic kids are shitty at impersonating superhero mutant sewer denizens. and that injustice cannot stand. so while gender becomes problematic through constantly reinforced roles, the problem with race is that there's sometimes just a vacuum.

SADY: right. the article does, to some level, address what happens in diverse schools. because the thought was, if kids are not raised in these mono-racial environments, they'll associate across races more and be less likely to make judgments based on race. but, nope! what happens, more often than not, is that even within a diverse environment like a school, kids only hang out with or form relationships with people of their own races. and that's complicated; i mean, i imagine that there are white kids having all-white friend groups because their parents are uncomfortable with dealing with non-white people and they're consequently uncomfortable with it as well. but i imagine there are also kids of color who are like, "oh, God, i do not want to deal with the white kids that are clueless and/or hurtful about race, i cannot educate anyone in the lunch room today, i just want to have my peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk in peace."

AMANDA: and the interesting thing is that kids are pretty ready to accept it—to the point that when they watch a multicultural Sesame Street episode, they do not notice the message enough for it to change their habits. Santa, apparently, is untouchable, though.**

SADY: ha, yes. "even the little girl the most adamant that the Real Santa must be white came around to accept the possibility that a black Santa could fill in for White Santa if he was hurt."

AMANDA: Christmas is even more racist than babies are

SADY: I'm dreaming of a non-exclusively-white Christmas, myself.

* Incorrect! There were no Ninja Turtles when Sady was four. There were, however, Ghostbusters. And Sady was not allowed to play. NOT EVEN AS JEANINE.

** Upon further reflection, I can totally understand why some white kids would not accept a black Santa. To adults, Santa is just whoever puts on the suit, and there's no reason a black dude can't put on the suit. To children, Santa is one real dude who becomes very important to their well-being each December. And for their whole lives, they'd seen that dude reproduced in malls, on television, and in storybooks as the same rosy-cheeked white dude. At that point, it's against that kid's best interest to accept that Santa could be black. Because if Santa could be black, that means there is more than one dude being Santa. And if there's more than one dude being Santa, that means that Santa isn't really real. And once you acknowledge to yourself and your immediate family that Santa isn't really real, there's always the fear that the presents will stop mysteriously dropping through the chimney. The only way to circumvent the racism of Christmas, in my opinion, is to introduce black Santa to children at a very early age,

Photo by soulchristmas

Meetings of advisory neighborhood commission 5C are among the most scrupulously documented affairs in the city. Debbie Smith, a Ward 5 resident and former commissioner, has taken to filming the meetings in full from the back of the room, citing “crazy stuff that has been going on lately.” Edgewood resident Michael J. Henderson publishes PDF documents of laptop notes he takes at each monthly meeting. Commissioner Gigi Ransom now sits behind a tape recorder in order to preserve every comment exchanged between commissioners.

Ransom knows the importance of catching comments on the record. On June 5 [PDF], five of Ransom’s fellow commissioners voted to censure her [PDF] regarding a variety of charges—from attempting to order surplus government furniture for her home office to displaying “erratic outbursts and outlandish behavior.” The most incendiary charge, however, concerned an e-mail Ransom sent to fellow commissioner Barrie Daneker on May 6. The e-mail contained the following critique:

Please know, I really don’t appreciate a white man, especially one who is gay, who gained his civil rights on the back of slaves & those of color who fought in the civil rights movement trying to control me or devalue my efforts. I am not a slave.

The censuring of Ransom is only the latest ANC 5C spat to come from a commissioner’s use of speech. ANC 5C—which represents Bloomingdale, Edgewood, Eckington, and Pleasant Hills—is distinguishing itself for generating never-before-contemplated issues of English usage and criminal law.

THE “POTENTIAL HATE CRIME”

In censuring Ransom, the ANC described her note as “racist and bigoted…possibly violating the Vice-Chairman’s civil and human rights; potentially committing hate crime.”

Acting Lt. Brett Parson, who heads up the D.C. Police Department’s Special Liaison Unit, discounts the possibility that Ransom’s note constituted any “threat” in violation of D.C. Code. “There’s no hate crime here,” he says. “It could—and I underline could—be construed as a hate-bias related incident, but it does not rise to the level of a criminal threat. This falls under freedom of speech. You’re allowed to hate whomever you want.”

In his reply, Daneker denounced Ransom’s e-mail as racist: “As for my civil rights, I am still waiting! How very dare you state that the civil rights of any group has been place on the backs of slaves and people of color, disgraceful!…I hope you find some happiness in your life and stop the hate and hurt that you apparently are feeling and spreading in our great city!”

Then, 5C Chairman Anita Bonds replied to the e-mail by dropping the possibility of a lawsuit against Ransom and adding: “Some say ‘we got you’ others say ‘we are going to get you.’”

Finally, the ANC made its words official. At that month’s ANC meeting, held on May 19, a coalition of commissioners came to get Ransom, distributing the “Resolution of Censuring and No Confidence Vote” and blindsiding Ransom with the allegations. If anything, the censuring of Ransom has only inspired more indecorous speech in the ANC 5C. The scene that erupted following the reading of the resolution was captured in Henderson’s monthly notes [PDF]:

Commissioner Ransom said you being white and gay means got your rights on the backs of slaves and there is nothing racist about that; I am a strong black woman and I don’t need anyone to validate me; I did not come back to serve to be subservient to anyone… Commissioner Ransom said she was told she could not read, and she was called the “B” word by Commissioner Day in a church.…Commissioner Ransom spoke at great length in defense of her integrity…the debate became rather heated; Debbie Smith stood up and began shouting loudly…at that point the meeting abruptly ended, at 9:50 p.m.

THE “MZ.” THING

Ransom’s upset about more than just Daneker’s free ride to civil rights. Another sticking point for Ransom was Daneker’s insistence on referring to Debbie Smith in correspondence as “Mz. Smith,” instead of the more traditional salutation “Ms.” Smith—the one with the video camera—has often popped up in official correspondence for her habit of raising neighborhood concerns with the body.

After fielding several e-mails from Daneker referring to Smith as “Mz,” Ransom asked Daneker to explain his strange usage in an e-mail: “Comm. Daneker, has there been an official change to the DC Manual of Styles in which now the correct way to address a female to whom we are communicating is ‘Mz.’, as opposed to ‘Ms.’?”

Daneker replied by providing an etiquette lesson courtesy of his Rhode Island prep school education. “[I]t is proper to use Mz. for a lady who’s the martial status is unknown, and who’s age appears to be more than 25 years old.… I was educated at the Wheeler School for my secondary education, and a whole course in etiquette was required. So I thank you for your question, and I hope you have found this information useful, you never know when you might need those skills.”

Ransom wasn’t buying it. “Daneker continued to address her as Mz.,” says Ransom. “Well, I’ve heard that term used by bloggers, rapper types like that, and sometimes it’s used for prostitutes, and we’ve seen it used in the gay community. But the real thing that bothered Deborah and me is that the term is used for a very popular animated character called Mz. Gorilla.”

Sarah Baak, the director of admissions for the Protocol School of Washington, a local authority on business etiquette, says she’s not familiar with Mz. in a business context. “The appropriate and most formal way to refer to a woman in the business world is by ‘Ms.,’” explains Baak. “I’ve never heard of Mz. It seems very informal.”

There is one context where “Mz.” is standard usage to refer to a woman, however—when she’s competing in a drag show alongside female impersonators. “Some organizations have a Miss, a Mr., and a Mz.,” Andre Hopfer, a veteran local drag performer, wrote in an e-mail. “They created the Mz. to differentiate between a real woman and a drag queen.”

Professing ignorance of the drag connection, Daneker says that he’s now stopped referring to Smith as “Mz..”

THE “B” WORD

In her response to the reading of the charges against her, Ransom noted that she’s not the only commissioner to have used incendiary language in the course of official business. Ransom claims that at one ANC meeting, “she was called the ‘B’ word by Commissioner Day in a church.”

Since ANC 5C meetings are often held in local houses of God, the church in question would have been operating in a civic capacity. Besides, nothing was caught on the record. “Yes, she did reference that in that meeting,” Commissioner Tim Day says. Day, who voted to censure Ransom for her comments against Daneker, issued the following nondenial to her accusation against him: “You know what—if there were any name-calling during any meeting, no one can validate that there was name-calling. This is just a desperate attempt to lash out at anyone she possibly could have.”

Debbie Smith, too, has repeatedly complained about commissioners’ use of “the ‘B’ word.” At the beginning of most 5C meetings, Smith uses the open “community comment” period to complain that Commissioner Marshall Phillips used the term to describe her more than five years ago. At the most recent ANC meeting, Smith claimed that Phillips had never been held accountable for calling her a “dirty black whatever”—in 2004.

Phillips denounced Smith’s dated accusation with a rumination on the word bitch.

“I have never called Ms. Smith the bitch word,” says Phillips. “I haven’t had any need. I might have thought that—that she was becoming difficult—but I know that she’s a human being, and a bitch is a female dog. Now, some people have used that word to stand as a hard task to communicate with. The Golden Girls used to use it on the TV, and The View uses the words as ‘The Bitch,’ almost now like it’s a diva. And I would never give Ms. Smith the credit to call her a diva.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

According to a study conduced by the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology, Brits hold the most "negative attitudes" toward lesbians, followed by gay men, Asians, blacks, and Southeast Asians. Here are the stats:

- 41 percent held prejudicial attitudes toward lesbians (!!!)
- 35 percent of those surveyed revealed negative attitudes toward gay men
- 28 percent held negative attitudes toward Asians
- 25 percent held negative attitudes toward Black populations
- 18 percent held negative attitudes toward Southeast Asians

The study is evidence for some that homophobia is a more widespread societal ill than is racism. Gay rights blogger Michael A. Jones tempers that assessment by writing that "homophobia and racism shouldn't be in a competition to outdo the other" and that both "deserved to be condemned equally."

It's worth noting the sample population the results are coming from. The study queried only 60 volunteers from a place without a significant recent history of institutionalized racism—say, South Africa or the American South. Also, the study doesn't address which forms of bigotry respondents felt comfortable relaying in a survey, and which prejudices they simply prefer to keep private.

Photo by kittyroara