It’s Thursday open thread time. Today’s open thread has a theme: racism. The floor is yours.
Oh, what is this world coming to when you can’t make a good racist joke among friends?
Bill O’Reilly is very very sad that you can’t make “Arab jokes” anymore:
O’REILLY: So 48 years ago — 48 years ago in this country we could make fun of Arabs. … We could make fun of people in a general way, and certainly, Ahab was the Arab was a general parody. But now, we can’t. What has changed in America?
The subtext of this lament is O’Reilly mourning the demise of what he refers to as the “white Christian male power structure.” It’s not really that you “can’t” make racist jokes anymore; it’s that you when you make them, you can’t expect everyone to remain silent as you assert your cultural or racial superiority through humor.
Remember, O’Reilly is one of the more sane ones on Fox.
Welcome to post-racial America:
A new professional basketball league called the All-American Basketball Alliance (AABA) sent out a press release on Sunday saying that it intends to start its inaugural season in June, with teams in 12 U.S. cities. However, the AABA is different from other sports leagues because only players who are “natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league.” AABA commissioner Don “Moose” Lewis insists that he’s not racist, but he just wants to get away from the “street-ball” played by “people of color” and back to “fundamental basketball.”
Oh no, definitely not a racist. Not everyone is happy about this, and at least one proposed city has said no thanks:
The AABA is targeting Southern cities, but one proposed city — Augusta, GA — is opposed to the league. Several other cities have reportedly told Lewis to “stay out of town.”