Cracked compiled a list of the nine most racist Disney characters. High up, as you can imagine, was the little slave-girl centaur in Fantasia who so dutifully polished the blond centaur’s feet. And don’t get me started on Uncle Remus and Song of the South. But it should come as no surprise that many of the comments on the post are worse than even the most egregious of Disney’s stereotypical characters. At least we can blame the Disney animators’ ignorance on the era.

• A white man’s being persecuted for a crime a black man committed? Well, that’s a twist on an age-old theme. [WFTV]

• South African airline Comair is being accused of racism by critics who say they failed to hire black cabin crew members because they couldn’t swim. [SABC]

• Plastic surgery really shouldn’t kill you. [HP]

• Seriously, with the nooses? There are so many other racist symbols out there. Go to a library or something. []

Thousands of protesters flooded DC today, and, led by (who else?) Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, marched to the Justice Department, where circled the building “seven times in a gesture reminiscent of the biblical Joshua’s procession around the walled city of Jericho.” Okay.

Well, the marchers are marching to protest the Justice Department’s lax response to “hate crimes and hate signs” that are popping up all over, most notably since the Jena Six story hit the mainstream.

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A murder case in Northern California has local civil rights activists crying racism. A 22-year-old black man will go on trial for a murder that everyone, including law enforcement, knows he didn’t commit. Renato Hughes was charged under a rarely-used legal doctrine called the California Provocative Act, which allows a person to be charged for murder if it can be proven that their illegal actions caused a series of events that would lead to bloodshed.

According to police, Hughes and two of his friends broke into the rural NoCal home of (white) Shannon Edmonds, where they demanded marijuana and beat the man’s stepson, who is now brain damaged, with a baseball bat. Edmonds shot the two friends in the back while Hughes got away. Hughes, whose mother said he went to the house to buy weed, not break in, .

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• First with GAP, now with Lincoln, Common is becoming quite the commercial rapper. I’m not mad at a guy trying to increase his wealth. [EUR]

• Evangelicals might not be the same unified front they were in the 2004 election, which is great news for Rudy Giuliani and Democrats (his ass is grass next November….uh, I hope…) [LAT]

• At the Achievement Gap Summit in California, black and Hispanic leaders say that racism in schools is partly responsible for the poor test scores of minority students. No way! [KPBS]

• An idiot who’s obviously stuck in 2002 sent a package filled with white powder to the Atlanta NAACP office. It turns out the powder was crushed up anti-depressants. If cops search the local pharmacies for a weepy, despondent racist trying to refill his Prozac, they might have some luck. [11Alive]

• A local Chicago rapper was shot and killed by police during a routine traffic stop. A gun was apparently “recovered at the scene.” [AHH]

A new study from UT Austin suggests that a common perception that it is harmful to teach children about historical racism in elementary school is wrong. The study found that white children who are taught about historical black figures who experienced racism are less likely to accept racial stereotypes.

To examine the consequences for white and African-American children of learning about historical racism, the researchers presented biographical lessons about 12 historical figures (six African Americans and six European Americans) to two groups of children ages 6-11.

For each group, some lessons provided information about racism, such as racially biased hiring practices and segregation, while others omitted this information. After the lessons, the children were interviewed about their racial attitudes and reactions, including guilt, defensiveness and anger.

Both white and black children who learned about racism were more likely to value racial fairness and to express greater satisfaction with the lesson. White children whose lessons included information on discrimination showed more defensiveness, had more racial guilt (if they were older than 7) and were less likely to accept stereotypical views about African Americans.

Who the hell thinks it’s wrong to teach kids about racism? They don’t need to see pictures of lynchings or watch Rosewood or do any of these stupid things, but they certainly need to know. Particularly when some of their parents are teaching them how to be racist at home.

• Columnists at the venerable New York Times are fighting over whether Ronald Reagan was a racist or at least appealed to racists in order to win elections. Uh, he was a Republican president, so we all know the latter is true. [E&P]

• Google tells the Anti-Defamation League it can’t/won’t censor anti-semitic or racist search engine results. And why should they? [Ynet]

• All Hip Hop lists the top 10 rappers-turned-actors. What, no Beanie Sigel? [AHH]

• If only all educators understood that black students can’t handle themselves in class because their church traditions are so raucous, it would be a much happier place. [BC]

If, by the time you in state office, you’re still unable to figure out that it’s not ever appropriate to call a black person “*,” particularly the mother of your local NAACP president, then maybe you should start to rethink your career in politics. Oh, and getting pulled over for driving drunk doesn’t help much either.

A state representative in a runoff election infuriated civil rights leaders after she ended a conversation with the mother of the NAACP’s local president by saying, “Talk to you later, Buckwheat.”

State Rep. Carla Blanchard Dartez, of Morgan City, acknowledged she made the remark during a Thursday night telephone conversation with Hazel Boykin to thank her for driving voters to the polls.

Buckwheat, a black child character in the “Little Rascals” comedies of the 1930s and ’40s, is viewed as a racial stereotype demeaning to black people.

Hazel Boykin’s son, Jerome, is the NAACP’s president in Terrebonne Parish. She is well-known as a 1960s civil rights activist, helping to desegregate restaurants and the parish school system.

Dartez, who said she’s not dropping out of the race, apologized and reminded voters that she voted in conjunction with the black caucus 93 percent of the time. This, of course, means she’s well within her right to call well-respected, elderly black women “Buckwheat” whenever she damn well pleases.

*_{Thanks, BMD!}

When Yahoo’s web game designers run out of ideas, they turn to myths from the good ol’ days of colonialism for their inspiration. is a brilliant game that requires the player to move all of the “kind” missionaries to one side of the water before the evil (brown) cannibals eat them. No, really. Sound fun?

Anyone tired of the racism news cycle? You know the one — it happened with Michael Richards, Don Imus, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and even with the Jena Six. The initial outrage! The talking heads discuss it on cable news and play it for entertainment value! The perpetrators meet with Al Sharpton and/or Jesse Jackson! The story fades! Certain white people feel it’s okay to say they didn’t think it was a big deal to begin with and that black people say/do that stuff all the time and hip hop sucks and !?! And so on, and so on…

The examined this trend in a recent story. Why do we treat these incidents as singular events instead of examining the larger problem of racism in this country? Why are we willing to complete this cycle over and over again instead of solving the problem? The answer they find is simple. If you examine Michael Richards and Don Imus as just cogs in the greater racism wheel, you’re admitting something that many white people don’t want to admit or honestly don’t believe — that racism still lives in this country, and not just when a tired, has-been comedian says “nigger” at a comedy club.

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