Pajiba

So, yeah, I went to the University of Florida, and I'm pretty damn embarrassed about what happened. Yes, the kid was and is a jerk, and yes, he has a history of public pranks (he once held a large sign with the words "HARRY DIES" painted on it at a busy intersection), but seriously? A taser? It almost hurts to watch it happening, and it's clear, at least to me, that it wasn't necessary. Was it?

"They're dashing and daring, courageous and caring..."

GUMMI BEARS! sweet.

Man, that Jena Six video majorly disturbed me. I don't want to believe that crap can happen and no one do anything about it.

I don't think Katherine Heigel is a jerk. As someone who's name is commonly mispronounced, I know the inconvenience and awkwardness that can result from an uncorrected name, not to mention the frustrating feeling of misrepresentation. I can't even imagine being called to the stage at an event so pivotal in your life and allowing them to call you something you're not. She didn't even correct them in a mean way, she was just trying to brush it off and laugh at herself. I thought she was great.

Another here who thinks Heigl was not at all a jerk. I think most of us would have done the same, but somehow because she's a pretty blonde celebrity it supposed to make her a jerk. Lame.

I'm in the pro-Hiegl group. My surname isn't even hard to pronounce to a person of assumed medium level intelligence, yet it's always mispronounced. I thought she was quite gracious in how she went about the correction.

Heh, I hear y'all on the mispronunciation thing--my first name is incredibly easy (seriously--it's three letters, two repeated) and I still get lots of mispronunciations. I think the jerkiness thing about her was the fact that she wouldn't let the Isaiah shit die down. Was he a total ass for calling someone a faggot? Fuck yes. I just didn't think she had to call him out on it in every single interview she did. Losers like him only take longer to go away when they get that kind of attention, and I just felt she kept bringing it up to make herself look better. Just sayin.

Now, on a more serious note. That Jena video is disturbing and, assuming the veracity of the report, deserves more attention (along with the story about the black woman who was kidnapped, tortured and raped). I am neither a violent person nor a pacifist. A racial slur against someone = fighting words. In the context of this case a misdemeanor with no time in jail would be appropriate, not prison time. And the kid who got beat should also be charged with a crime for inciting violence. The principal and the DA should lose their jobs. The school should be sued for violating numerous rights of the black students. The students who put up the nooses should be charged with hate crimes. And the state's attorney general should get involved in this mess. And thats just day one.

"For those of us living in the more moderate to liberal areas of the U.S., it seems almost surreal that such extreme racism is still alive and kicking"

I'd disagree. Come visit me in Chicago (a blue city in a blue state). Its the first place where I've ever heard a white person call a black person the N-word. Its easy to rag on the south about racism, but its in all the places you don't want to think it is.

EVERYONE. EVERYONE!