Author: Clio

It’s Memorial Day. A day for Americans to sit around eating BBQ, waving American flags, and taking the day off. Historically, it’s about making peace with your enemies. Memorial Day started in the South, in the wake of the Civil War, as a way for the losing side to reach out to the winning side…

A white man’s rant against people speaking Spanish in his presence recently went viral. He was later identified as Aaron Schlossberg, a lawyer who “has a history of being racist.” This is just one of an ever-increasing list of white people being publicly racist. Another high-profile example was a white woman identified as Jennifer Schulte,…

This happened at Waffle House: Police were called on two black women who were confused about why they had to pay for plastic cutlery they’d gotten for free the day before. Two white male officers wrestled one of the women to the ground, exposing her breasts. This happened at Waffle House: A white male police…

Late last year, Hari Kondabolu’s excellent documentary, “The Problem with Apu,” premiered on truTV. In it, he talked about his experiences as an Indian-American growing up in the shadow of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Indian convenience store owner on The Simpsons. He spoke to a variety of other Indian-American celebrities. He discussed blackface and minstrels with…

A tradition in comedy says: Always punch up, never punch down. That is to say, don’t attack people who are already marginalized. Right now, we’re in the middle of two controversies involving humorists. ◊♦◊ One involves punching up. Some people are upset over Michelle Wolf’s routine at the White House correspondents’ dinner, where she attacked…

Oh, my fellow liberal white people. Let’s be honest. We’re not protesting Starbucks because they have racist employees. We’re protesting them because they got caught. They had racist employees last week, last month, last year. We didn’t protest them then. And they’re not alone. Just about every business we walk into has some racist employees….

This week, two black men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks for “loitering.” According to GMP’s Christopher Norris, who spoke to the management, the men weren’t given any warning prior to the police showing up. Two videos have surfaced so far showing the altercation. The shorter one, posted on Twitter by Melissa DePino, shows a…

When I was a child, I was afraid of public restrooms. I regularly avoided them. The biggest reason was a racist urban legend. I’d lived for a few years in Pontiac, Michigan, and I was told about something that had supposedly happened in a local shopping mall. A white boy had gone into the restroom…

Every year, March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility. This day “aims to bring attention to the accomplishments of trans people everywhere while fighting cissexism and transphobia.” If you’re still struggling with understanding transgender, nonbinary, and other gender identity topics, I get it: Like most people, I was raised to think that boys were boys,…