This Week in Racism

Colorado Republican Nicknames Black Colleague After ‘Little Rascals’ Character

It’s an embarrassment of riches in our weekly roundup of the world’s most preventable disease!

Death and taxes used to be the only two certainties in life. But no matter how much progress it feels like we’re making sometimes, the sad fact is you can probably slide racism into that list. Are we in a moment of uprising that feels like it has the potential to create real, systemic change? Yes. Do people and organizations still show their ass on a daily basis? Oh, most definitely. And to keep tabs on all that ass-showing, we created a weekly racism surveillance machine. If you already get our newsletter, Minority Report, you’ve likely seen this — but now the rest of the internet can get a taste.

🗑 Looks like we’ve got an early frontrunner for state politician of the year

There’s an old saying that we just made up about Colorado politics: “If you haven’t heard anything wildly offensive in a while, just wait until Richard Holtorf opens his mouth.” In February, the Republican legislator told a colleague whose son had been killed in a 2012 mass shooting that he should just “let go” of the issue. Holtorf told the Denver Post that he couldn’t possibly be racist because he had a gay, Black friend in college. And just last week, on the floor of the statehouse, he responded to a colleague by saying, “Don’t worry, Buckwheat, I’m getting there,” and then claiming it was “an endearing term.” (“Where I’m from, that particular term is used for a younger person, a tyke, a kid, a youngster,” Holtorf later added.) Not otay! As long as we’re coming up with endearing terms, how has no one thought to give Richard Holtorf the A-Rod treatment by dubbing him Dick-Hol? We’re just saying, if the cowboy hat you’re wearing in your official government photo fits… (AP News)

🗑 Racist-ass teachers’ new strategy: When in doubt, just blame the messenger

Earlier this year, the public school district in Naperville, Illinois, invited diversity consultant Dena Simmons, Ed.D., to lead a Zoom seminar. It wasn’t…