Blogger Nicole Stamp risked the wrath of the internet by writing an essay called, bluntly, "District 9 is racist." Her reasoning, however, goes beyond the portrayal of the aliens in the movie - although she has problems with that, too:

The aliens are loathsome, trash-eating vermin who fight endlessly, destroy property for no reason, and piss on their own homes, which isn't a truthful or flattering allegorical comparison for actual black South Africans under apartheid. Apartheid is terrible because humans were denied rights. The "apartheid" of these aliens isn't that terrible — it's kind of justifiable, because they're actually dangerous, violent and destructive. I think it would be a better allegory, and a more sophisticated movie, if the aliens weren't unpleasant. If they were peaceful and kind, but the humans still demonized them, the film would be much more chilling; the horror would be "man's inhumanity to lobster-man", not "eew gross they eat pig heads!"

But the allegory has little, if anything, to do with why she's convinced that Neill Blomkamp's critically-acclaimed movie is racist. No, that comes from its treatment of the humans in the movie:

The Nigerian gangsters are bloodthirsty, dishonest thugs, which is not a big deal — they're gangsters, I get it. They see the aliens as mere cockroaches with money, so they don't treat them well, and that makes perfect sense. They're just cruel, self-interested mercenaries, and in this, they're no worse than the film's (mostly white) government officials, who cold-bloodedly torture and murder the aliens. So far no racism, just characters with motivations.

But!

The Nigerians have a wailing "witch doctor". Who instructs them to eat the aliens. And they do it. Bloody, wriggling, and raw, of course. We're told that the black prostitutes "service" the aliens sexually. ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME??! And when Wikus' arm grows a claw, the Nigerian gang boss starts licking his chops, eager to commit cannibalism.

Yup, that's Hollywood's Africa the Africa we get from the media, isn't it. Black Africans shown as degenerate savages who'll have sex with non-humans and are pretty damn eager to eat people.

Disgusting.

The blog's readership is split between those who agree, and those who don't, even for the most random of reasons ("The director is from South Africa and is not racist, just an FYI," being my favorite).

District 9 is racist [Pageslap]

Here's the drama: A lot of people are upset, and rightly so, that the first African American Disney Princess will spend the majority of the film as a green frog. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at the seemingly diverse animated cast on this deck of cards that was being handed out at Comic Con:

But any feelings of multicultural warm-fuzzies were pretty much shot to hell after I played the Princess-centered little computer game on the movie's website. Needless to say the premise left me a bit, stunned. The main character, Tiana, is sent on a mission to retrieve the rich white girl's tiara, so she can borrow it, but along the way she's asked to fetch some hot sauce for the gumbo before she has permission to get to the rich girl's bedroom. For a movie in which every move is being scrutinized by the media, why go there? It's, well, disappointing and almost too easy, so I will say no more. Tell me I'm being hyper sensitive but I was pretty shocked one of the first errands they send the black Princess on is to basically wait on a white lady. Shouldn't someone be checking this?

Trailer

Following on from a comment I made about the worrying lack of white criminals for white wannabe superhero Kick-Ass to beat up, commenter gbryant asked a somewhat inflammatory question:

I ask in all seriousness: why is it taboo (or questionable) for white kids to beat up not-white kids? I mean, if the beating is specifically for ethnic reasons then, yeah, that's bad. But real life (at least the one with which I am familiar) isn't like a Brinks Home Security commercial where all crime is perpetrated by white street toughs in stocking caps who look like they should be somewhere demanding that you "stay offa da Eagle's turf." If you're going to beat up criminals in New York, you're going to have to beat up a lot of people of all races - but mostly minorities.

Unsurprisingly, it was the last sentence that people had most trouble with:

IkeBenson: "you had me shaking my head in agreement until 'but mostly minorities'"

Evlsusji: "WOW. I'm not gonna even TOUCH this one."

jp182: "you obviously don't watch Law & Order do you? Even that fictional show about crime in NYC shows plenty of white criminals."

gbryant attempted to explain:

Yeah, I figured that might cause some discomfort and, for that, I apologize. I do, however, stand by the assertion that Blacks and Latinos are responsible for a disproportionate amount of street crime in NYC; therefore it is entirely reasonable to depict a street crime fighter in NYC beating up Blacks and Latinos. Now, it is an assertion based largely on anecdotal information as I seem to have the hardest time finding any data regarding the race of criminal perpetrators in NYC that would serve to either confirm or deny my gut feelings.

That didn't calm down everyone, though:

crashfrog: "It's about economics, not race. The racial disparities among criminals are a symptom of the differing class issues that send people into different kinds of crimes, not anything having to do with race on it's own. Race, after all, doesn't entirely exist."

Evlsushi: "My point is that racism makes people see what they want to see about stereotypes. This is why racial profiling is such a bad bad problem in NYC (and L.A. for that matter). If police investigate blacks more than whites then of course it's going to look like white people aren't as responsible for as many crimes... Also, to address your first post, I think the problem with having a white kid beat up ONLY blacks and latinos is the fact that minorities have a history in cinema for being portrayed as thugs and criminals. Having a white kid beat up some black people echoes violence during the civil rights era for a lot of people. I'm all for equal opportunity ass kicking, but it's gotta be balanced."

That was my original problem with the comic, I think; that it seemed unbalanced for the white kid to only be going after non-white criminals. But then again, maybe it's all in my head. After all, as brucifer said,

Frankly, it's upper middle class white liberal guilt that makes it taboo. It's also a fear that if they enjoy a movie where a white kid beats up a black kid, they are racists.

So now we know.

Human evolution will reach its peak in about the year 3000. By then, sexual selection will have bred men into tall, handsome studs with deep voices, square jaws and substantial penises. Their female counterparts will have smooth, hairless skin, glossy hair, large eyes and perky breasts, says Curry. But after that, it's all downhill.

Curry also claims within 100,000 years the human race will divide into two species, just like in The Time Machine. Over-reliance on technology will turn some humans into sensitive New Age wimps, while others will become dumb servants. It's just the sort of crap you should expect when the field of genetics is overrun by racist dickwads like James Watson. Image by high_me

Scientist: Human Race May Split In Two In Far Future [Fox News]

According to Times reporter Charlotte Hunt-Grubbe, who has the interview on tape:

He says that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really", and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true". He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so".

Should we let this guy's foolish remarks undermine our admiration for the science he pioneered? Yes. There has always been a strong element of racism and sexism in the study of genetics, a field whose history is deeply bound up with the eugenics movement (which was, after all, a "scientific" movement). Leaders in the field like Steven Pinker and E.O. Wilson routinely make comments about how people are "hardwired" to behave in certain ways based on their genetic heritage, which is often linked to their racial backgrounds or sex. Genomics and evolutionary biology studies on the genetic inferiority of female intelligence are what motivated former Harvard President Larry Summers to claim that there are so few women in science because we just aren't smart enough. Back in 2003, I saw Harvard professor Steven Pinker give a lecture at MIT where he speculated that perhaps Jews are just genetically more intelligent than other groups.

These guys give science a bad name, and they derail good work that might get done in their fields by bringing sex and race bias into the lab. I'm glad that Watson has finally gotten a good spanking for a lifetime of asswipage. Too bad it didn't happen earlier.

Here's the article from the London Times where Watson stuck his foot in his mouth for the last time.