When I woke up this morning and checked Twitter the number one trending topic was #thingsblackgirlsdo. I managed to track down the origin of the trend and it seems it started innocently by a bunch of African American young guys joking and airing their romantic grievances. However, shortly after, the topic started to attract the attention of, you guessed it, Whites. The bigotry, ignorance and just plain racism is astounding.
By the time I am writing this there are petitions circulating online to ask Twitter to remove the topic. As well intentioned as these petitions are, they will go nowhere as Twitter does not control the content. Moreover, the topic will be indexed in other services that feed from Twitter data (places like Whatthetrend.com) and it will be even amplified with more bigots throwing their uninformed two cents (in turn, this will continue amplifying the trend because more people become aware of it).
Just what I needed today: a snowball of racism to go with my mid morning coffee.
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