Once upon a time, before Facebook and the Internet, your stupid racist opinions used to only be your own. Because you lacked the ability to instantly communicate with 500 million people, it was unlikely that some poorly constructed half-thought would find its way into the minds of your peers. That’s all changed now, and it seems as though when given a soapbox to express themselves, many human beings are choosing to display their real colors, and the process isn’t always pretty.

Take the recent suspension of young Natasha Burge from her high school in Windsor, Ontario for these comments she posted on her profile:

Natasha Burge, 19, reposted a comment Nov. 3 saying those who feel offended by Christmas celebrations and the singing of the national anthem at school should “please feel free to go back to your own f—–g country.”

Burge goes on to suggest walking through Kennedy Collegiate dressed up as Santa and “screaming merry christmas to the arabs, pakis, towel heads and whatever other race that doesn’t like it.”

“It’s ridiculous. I get suspended over something I believe in — we should be allowed to say, ‘Merry Christmas,’

Yeah, you might have gotten in trouble for saying “Merry Christmas”, although I have this crazy suspicion that your “arab/paki/towel head” comment might have been the real clincher. I guess this racist teen from Ontario doesn’t even realize that telling immigrants that they can go fuck themselves if they don’t like Christmas isn’t the kind of talk that promotes school spirit. Who would have guessed!

Now, some of you might be upset that this girl’s right to free speech has been violated, and feel that what a person writes on their own profile should remain a private matter. I’m inclined to agree, although it’s becoming increasingly clear that our online identities are quickly merging with our physical reality. If the school decides that bigoted, racist or otherwise disparaging comments on Facebook can affect the way their institution operates, it’s rather difficult to argue against it. Kids use Facebook to advertise their interests, their beliefs, and their thoughts. When you choose to make public what you believe, this can have profound consequences. All I can tell you for certain is this perception that your online life is private is quickly evaporating. There may come a time when all that shit talk you’ve been slinging on the Internet might come back to bite you in the ass. Post at your own risk, people!

It still surprises me how some people still think that Arizona’s draconian Anti-Immigration laws aren’t racist. I hear the same cavalcade of pathetic explanation trying to justify the blatantly immoral actions of the state to essentially criminalize being a darker skin color. If you still don’t believe me, then allow me to show you exhibit A, a school in Prescott, Arizona at the center of another race related controversy. The principle at Miller Valley Elementary School wants a mural depicting children taking environmentally friendly transportation to be “lightened”, since the most prominent children in the picture are not in fact white.

[Principle] Lane said that he received only three complaints about the mural and that his request for a touch-up had nothing to do with political pressure. “We asked them to fix the shading on the children’s faces,” he said. “We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race.”

City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.

In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: “To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?”

The children in the mural were actually selected from real students who go to the school, and the parents and children all loved it. Unfortunately for them, racism and bigotry are alive and well in Arizona. The artists who made the mural reported during its creation, they were subject to hecklers who screamed racial slurs at them. It looks like most people aren’t even bothering to cover up their obvious hatred of anyone who doesn’t have white skin. Congratulations Arizona state on once again making me want to vomit with rage!

You get the impression sometimes there really are two Americas: one where the values of liberty, religious and ethnic diversity, the rule of law and a sense of fair play still reign supreme, and one where bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, rigid religious dogmatism and “safety” rules the day. It’s why you get places like Arizona where the government is hard at work trying to boot out every single illegal immigrant from the state. You’re probably already aware they’ve passed a draconian and fascist law that basically makes it mandatory for police to arrest anyone they suspect of being there illegally (as in anyone with brown colored skin). What you may not be aware of is they’ve also decided that speaking with a heavy accent is also unacceptable:

The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.

The very notion of America potentially becoming a bilingual nation has scared the living crap out of a whole bunch of really racist old white people who fear that “Jose” is going to take all their jobs while apparently also being on welfare (don’t try and understand how racist people manage to believe in this idiotic paradox; it’ll hurt your brain). Never mind the fact illegals account for roughly 20 billion dollars of revenue for the state, or that Mexican workers usually do the tasks everyone else refuses to do. I guess it turns out the safety and comfort of old white people is more important than honoring the very principles etched so poetically on the Statue of Liberty, which should now read as follows:

Give me your Caucasian, your rich,
Your huddled masses yearning to be mistreated for not speaking English ,
Turn back the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed back to their country of birth,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door (presumably to find any Mexican hiding in the dark)!”

Arizona, you fucking suck.

Perhaps it can be said at one particular time (although I’m unaware of exactly when), religion offered a way for individuals to feel some degree of community with others who did not share any direct family lineage. Whatever advantage religion conferred to our ancient ancestors, the inevitable tendency for religionists to favor only those with precisely the same belief as them has fostered some of the most genocidal racism and xenophobia. For proof of this, look no further than the Old Testament, which proudly boasts the genocide of the Canaanites and other small tribes unfortunate enough to live in the land of the “chosen” people.

A new study recently found a person’s religiosity is often a very good indicator of their racism. Both conservatives and fundamentalists tend to share the same degree of prejudice, although the orthodox are usually far better at trying to mask it.

All this is nothing new for the rest of us rational enough to have long ago abandoned the divisive clutches of religion. The fact that this same study found those with no religious affiliation tended to be less racist does not surprise us, for we know full well the acidic rhetoric of the faithful. How hollow is the accusation of moral failure on the part of atheists? Shallow and uninformed indeed!