Some time last year I was reading Kleinzeit, a surreal metaphysical novel by Russell Hoban. At some point the character is taking the Underground across London:
On a film poster a famous prime minister, shown as a youthful army officer, pistol in hand, glared about him, said in handwriting, I must kill someone, even British workers will do. KILL WOG SHIT, answered the wall.
The novel was written in 1974. Thinking back, I could vaguely remember that yes, racism like that used to be a thing.
A few years ago the UK police carried out Operation Ore. It was a major operation targeting online child pornography. Some 7,272 British residents were added to a police database of people who paid to view child porn online. 4,283 homes were searched, 3,744 people were arrested, 1,451 were convicted. It was a major blow against pedophiles.
Or at least, that was the theory.
The US had a similar operation, Operation Avalanche.
It’s been a bumper month for Transparent Society demonstrations.
Michael Richards went into a racist tirade. He played Kramer on Seinfeld, but I’m guessing he won’t be doing any NAACP benefits now. Perhaps they could invite him to the Comedy Central Roast of Whoopi Goldberg. Allegedly he had ranted about Jews previously, but nobody had heard about it because nobody had had a camera handy.
A Muslim student was repeatedly tasered by a campus cop with a history of police brutality and suspensions.
According to The Independent, UK police are being told that they can’t use words like “homosexual” and “bisexual”, because those are medical terms “used to criminalize lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in the nineteenth century”.
Which makes me wonder—just what the hell am I supposed to say instead of “bisexual”, in order to be politically correct? (This is a serious question.)