This is what happens when you live in a homogeneous racial bubble, you tend to do stupid s**t.
Now that the cat is out of the sheets we are getting all kinds of regrets from the main actors in this latest American racial faux- paus.
"Bloomberg Businessweek is taking a beating from critics who say the magazine's recent cover—featuring a cartoon illustration of what appears to be a black family rolling in cash from a housing rebound—is racist.
"Our cover illustration got strong reactions, which we regret," Josh Tyrangiel, Bloomberg Businessweek's editor in chief, said in a statement to Yahoo News. "If we had to do it over again, we'd do it differently."
Poor Josh. Josh, this is why you need to be like the people on those commercials
and get yourself a black friend. Your black friend would have told you that this wasn't cool. (Well, unless your black friend happened to be a HN like this guy. I see you JC, way to jig for Mr. Charlie when he wants to put down another brotha.)
"The Feb. 25 cover depicts the cash-grabbing family members as stereotypical caricatures inside a two-story pink home above the headline "The Great American Housing Rebound."
"Flips. No-look bids. 300 percent returns," the subhead reads. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"The claim that minorities are creating a housing bubble through flipping, no-look bids, and 300% returns is simply not reality," Jacob Gaffney wrote on HousingWire.com. "Flipping is a form of fraud and not a typical transaction. No-look bids are not exclusive to Hispanic and African-American investors. No one is making a 300% return."
"Businessweek Warns That Minorities May Be Buying Houses Again," Matthew Yglesias wrote on Slate.com."
"This is a common refrain among [right] wingnuts and conservatives: the housing crisis was the minorities fault. Businessweek was just playing along with the narrative. Let's just forget about the fact that it was the big banks in America and their greedy enablers who allowed this all to go down.
Finally, I hate to bring this story to you on the last day of Black History Month, but today my racism chase takes me to Kentucky.
"After tagging Cordia (Hazard, Ky.) High players Emmanuel Owootoah and Marlon King -- both Canadian transfers of Caribbean descent -- in Facebook and Twitter posts featuring a burning flag and a noose hanging over the oh-so-creative phrase "[Expletive] Canada," Knott County Central (Hindman, Ky.) High students began chanting "USA!" prior to a district championship game between the two schools on Friday, according to reports published on Kentucky.com and ZagsBlog.com (h/t Big Lead).
They should have better class than that, man," Owootoah told Kentucky.com after dropping 24 points in a 66-60 loss to their rivals 20 miles down the road. "But at the same time, I thought it was funny. I don't let stuff like that get to my head."
The Knott County Central principal told LEX 18 News the chants are "open to interpretation," since his school's mascot is the Patriots. Good one. The principal knows only of one student who was involved and says the taunting goes both ways between the schools. OK, then. Nothing to see here, I guess.
But what about the fact that Eduardo and Jessica Flores, who serve as guardians to both Owootoah and King, have bullet holes in their back door, a smashed mailbox and report "repeated" attacks on the children, according to the ZagsBlog.com report?
Might want to address those issues instead of trying to bury them under a rug by claiming the least egregious of all the acts -- the "USA!" chants -- are "open to interpretation." Especially since the teams may meet again with a regional title on the line this week.
Not a good look, especially since the University of Kentucky has scouted Owootoah. He might think twice about the Wildcats, even if the acts of a select number of folks from Hindman don't reflect the opinions of most other Kentuckians.
Likewise, as the Big Lead notes, No. 1 national recruit in the Class of 2013 Andrew Wiggins is expected to choose between Kentucky and his father's alma mater, Florida State. Wiggins is both black and Canadian." [Source]
Yes, just keep teaching those kids how to be racists and xenophobes and our republic will be just fine.
