Oberlin vs. Columbia (Tumblr)

Gasp! Shock! Quelle horreur! Did you know that Columbia University students--those fine, Ivy League men and women who only occasionally offer to have sex for money on Sugar Daddy websites in order to pay their tuition--are stealing directly from their institution? It's true! Every week, thousands of dollars goes missing from the coffers at Columbia, and the financial sinkhole's location has finally been tracked to the dining hall, where students are stealing Nutella at a cost of $5,000 a week.

Then again, that's small potatoes compared to those kids at Oberlin who are dressing as Klan members and defacing property with racial slurs, because what?

More on the devastating blow to Columbia's funds thanks to fiending undergrads who just can't get enough of that sweet, sweet hazelnut spread:

According to The Post:

No one expected the Ivy Leaguers to wolf down the snack at the rate of what could cost $260,000 a year.

The problem is that undergrads are not just filling up while in the cafeterias. They’s pilfering it to eat elsewhere.

“Students have been filling cups of Nutella to-go in Ferris Booth Commons,” one of the campus eateries, Dunn said. “And taking the full jars out of John Jay [dining hall], which means we’re going through product faster than anticipated.”

Though as the article is quick to mention, it costs every student $2,363 to eat in the dining halls per semester, which equals $5,260 a year. And since there are 5,000 students who eat in the dining halls every day, that means the total Columbia profit just from their basic meal plan is $26,300,000. That number might actually be higher, seeing as the undergrad meal plan basically forces them to pay for at least 15 meals a week, with two of the three options requiring the payment of 19 meals in the dining hall paid out ahead of time, whether they end up eating them or not.

We think they can afford the hypothetical $260,000 to keep their Italian spread a little less thin, huh?

So this Nutella theft ring seems relatively mild, especially when compared to say, Oberlin College in Ohio, where students have the choice after the first semester to opt out of the dining plan and work in a food co-op, but are still pissed enough to dress like Klan members* outside the Afrikan Heritage House, write anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric on bathroom walls and posters, and basically be the worst people ever, possibly all in an effort to prove some point about free speech. Maybe. Or maybe just to get the day off from classes.

It's tough to explain what would motivate someone to rile up the super-P.C. Oberlin crunchy community unless you actually went there, or happened to read stumble on the Oberlin MicroAgressions Tumblr. Actually, that gives you a pretty good sense of it. Then again, the idea that the perpetrators were part of the MultiCultural Resource Center and wrote all of these hateful things because they were making some sort of statement about how an actual hate crime would make people feel and also we all have the right to do whatever we want (that's what the First Amendment is, correct?) is another good tip-off.

Maybe they just need more Nutella.

*Or just "a lady wrapped in a blanket," or possibly, "a ghost."

John Derbyshire (Wikipedia)

Remember our friend John Derbyshire, formerly of the National Review? He's the guy who wrote an article on Taki's Mag about talking to your children about black people, which started out sort of funny in that hipster racist way, but then quickly veered off into a danger zone of bizarrely arbitrary stereotypes. (To paraphrase: "Black People Day at Six Flags is the worst!")

Well, ever since he was fired by Rich Lowry for going over the implied racism quota set by the Review, Mr. Derbyshire has been keeping himself busy. Writing about how White Supremacy has a bad rap, going to his radiology checkups, brushing up on his Smithsonian back issues...he's kind of your granddad, isn't he?

Mr. Derbyshire finally found a topic he can really sink his politically incorrect teeth into: U.S. cities that pretend that they're more racially diverse than they are. And he's got the data to back it up! Though he's not really sure what it means! Also: Stuff White People Like, NPR, and the term "multicultural"  as an insult...all below!

After reading an article entitled "The 20 Best Towns In America," Mr. Derbyshire uses his confounding logistical skills and determined the best response to this piece would be to investigate  the racial make-up of several of these locations. Always one for throwing a curve-ball, Mr. Derbyshire starts off enraged that someone from NPR was quoted as saying that a small Massachusetts town was racially diverse, when it fact it was full of white people.

We also hear from a local NPR (!) director that:
Great Barrington is a small, manageable, economically and ethnically mixed town.

That started me wondering just how ethnically mixed Great Barrington and the other Best Small Towns are. I brought up city-data.com and opened a spreadsheet. Look, it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. In what follows, bear in mind that the USA as a whole is 63.7% non-Hispanic white, 12.2% non-Hispanic black, 16.3% Hispanic, and 7.8% Other.

Great Barrington turned out to be deplorably un-diverse, the NPR guy notwithstanding. The percentages of white-black-Hispanic are 84.9-2.6-7.7. Smithsonian readers might have to hunt around for those chimichangas.

(Love city-data.com by the way; we just learned that in our hometown, "the number of registered sex offenders compared to the number of residents in this place is a lot smaller than the state average." Score!)

The thing you have to understand about Mr. Derbyshire is that he thinks he's being equitable. So while he mocks the concept of Stuff White People Like on one page, on the next he feels its his duty to prove that he's still an edgy provacateur.

With Key West, FL, though, we’re back in Bobo-land:

Hippies, artists, writers and chefs have sustained a vibrant, kitschy art scene for decades.

Spare me. And do people still use the word “vibrant” non-ironically to mean something other than “crime-riddled multicultural slum”?

This type of lazy racism wouldn't be worthy of a post--Though we've never heard the term 'multicultural' as a slur before. Did he mean multiethnic?-- except that as it turns out, Key West is actually more white than the national average:

On one hand, Key West is whiter than the USA at large, though only slightly (66.1%). On the other, it has 19% more crime than the US average given by city-data.com, with particularly high levels of burglary and theft.

We've always wondered what a failed attempt at bigotry would look like, but apparently it involves calling a predominantly white neighborhood a multicultural slum. Which makes John Derbyshire about as accurate at reporting racial disparities as an NPR reporter.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Jay-Z (Patrick McMullan)

Everyone is very, very mad at Gwyneth Paltrow for being racist, because on Friday she tweeteda picture of Kanye West and Jay-Z performing in France.

"Ni**as in Paris for real!" the tweet said, referring to the song title from the duo's album, Watch the Throne. We hate that this is forcing us to defend the creator of GOOP, but no, this is not a racist tweet.Especially because she didn't write it? It was written by a black celebrity who borrowed her iPhone. So who is racist now, America?!?!

When the attacks started, Ms. Paltrow--like any rational person--responded with "Hold up. It’s the title of the song!" It is the title of the song. The song doesn't even use stars to replace letters, like Ms. Paltrow did. But also "Hold up" doesn't sound like Ms. Paltrow!

Then it turned out that it wasn't even Ms. Paltrow who tweeted it! Terius Nash, also known as record producer The Dream, sent a message on Twitter:

Fyi Sorry for the Confu I typed Ni**as in paris for real from Gwens Phone my bad I was Fkd up please excuse it! We were lit!

What? Okay. Celebrities are weird. We wouldn't let our friends tweet from our accounts, and we didn't even star in Iron Man!

Conclusion: Do not let The Dream act as your ghost-tweeter. Especially if you still want to do that record with Jay-Z.

On AntiRacistAction.org, the group stated the alleged motivation behind the incident:

On Saturday, May 19th a group of 30 anti-fascists descended upon Ashford House restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park where the 5th annual White Nationalist Economic Summit and Illinois White Nationalist Meet-and-Greet was taking place. The White Nationalists were targeted inside the restaurant and physically attacked, causing several injuries and completely shutting down their meeting. The anti-fascist group was privy to anonymous inside information. This fascist event had been in secret planning for six months. The attendees have attempted to cover up the true intent of the event with mainstream media reports initially reporting the white nationalist conference as a wedding party and then as an Irish heritage meeting. The event was advertised on www.stormfront.org, an established white nationalist fascist internet forum.

The apparent other side of this story developed in the comments section of an article by the Tinley Park Patch, one of AOL's subsidiary websites devoted to "hyper-local" news. The attack was reported there (and elsewhere) as a strange, random incident possibly linked to the Occupy-associated anti-N.A.T.O. protests that have been revving up in downtown Chicago since mid-week.

A message thread at Stormfront.org dating back to April matches Anti-Racist Action's statements regarding the date and nature of the meeting. User "Sgathaich" posted about the event on April 3 and added, "If you are a business owner/self employed bring your info. All ideas are welcome. White's working for White's [sic]. White's supporting White's [sic]. We are taking back what is ours."

Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki told the Chicago Tribune late Saturday that authorities were not certain about connections between the groups or the attackers' motivations.

The Tribune reported three of the injured were taken to the hospital. Others refused medical attention.

The Chicago paper also reported that one of the three vehicles that fled the scene was pulled over on W. 159th and five people were taken into custody.

Tinley Park's Patch quoted an employee inside Ashford House when the attack took place. "Tables were being thrown and chairs were broken," said the employee. Unknown words were also spray-painted on a wall during the melee.

The same unnamed employee told Patch that the woman who made reservations for the group that was attacked claimed they travel the country touring 'Irish festivals.'

(Mark Hammermeister)

Two weeks ago, Phil Mushnick, a respected veteran sports writer for The New York Post, published a column about the Brooklyn Nets’ new brand identity, as designed with the help of Jay-Z. The team—previously known as the New Jersey Nets—had switched their colors to black and white. “Why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?” Mr. Mushnick suggested, referring to the team’s part-owner. “Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N------s. The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B---hes or Hoes ...”

Once upon a time, a remark like that would have led to a call for Mr. Mushnick’s head ... or at least a resignation. And while several media outlets picked up on the story on their Web sites, the “scandal” was a non-starter. Mr. Mushnick was not reprimanded by The Post. Forbes even defended him.

If the story of Mr. Mushnick seemed novel, though, it was only because it didn’t happen on Twitter. At times, it seems as if the microblogging platform was designed to ease the glide path of users’ feet directly into their mouths as they dash off unthinking, offensive commentary: Cee Lo Green calling a fan of The Voice ‘gay’; CNN commentator Roland Martin’s homophobic tweets after the Super Bowl; Chris Brown being Chris Brown (his response to a hater: “Grow up n——a!!! Dick in da ass lil boy.”)

Ashton Kutcher's "brownface" PopChip commercial

Nearly four years after the election of a black man as president, intolerant attitudes are having a cultural moment. And one inspiration may well be Mr. Obama himself, whose occupation of the White House seems to have been misinterpreted as a signal that the country has overcome the ugliness of its racist past and we are now all free (at last) to air our most contemptible prejudices.

Of course, not all racists, sexists, anti-Semites and homophobes are created equal. There’s the bilious misogyny of a Rush Limbaugh and the unhinged anti-Semitism of a John Galliano or a Mel Gibson or a Delmon Young. There’s the mass-stupidity of all of those Hunger Games fans outraged by the casting of an African-American actor as a character they thought was white and the semi-ironic, "hipster racism" displayed by Lesley Arfin, a writer for the HBO show Girls.

The latter form was dubbed “ironic racism” after Ms. Arfin responded on Twitter to criticisms that the show didn’t feature enough women of color, cracking, “What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME.”

The tweet, quickly deleted, spurred bloggers to uncover other damning evidence of Ms. Arfin’s racist attitudes—including a 2007 interview on the Huffington Post, in which she noted the n-word “was a great word. It packs so much punch.” (To give more context, Ms. Arfin was asked to pick between three 'hate' terms as her favorite.) Gavin McInnes, Ms. Arfin’s former employer at VICE, jumped to her defense—not that he’s an especially respected authority on tolerance.

It seems that with the rigid speak-no-evil precepts of political correctness now as out of fashion as stonewashed jeans, the rules have become a little fuzzy. It’s interesting to see just what sort of parochialism is forgiven and what is not. The hit Comedy Central series Tosh.0 includes a segment called “Is It Racist?” that is itself, arguably, racist (it’s definitely stupid). Meanwhile, ESPN employee Anthony Federico was fired for headlining a story about Jeremy Lin “A Chink in the Armor,” though he later claimed the implication was inadvertent. There was Ashton Kutcher’s controversial “brown face” ad for PopChips and Jon Hamm’s not-that-controversial blackface in a special episode of 30 Rock.

It seemed an auspicious time for lunch with Taki Theodoracopulos, the charismatic 75-year-old Greek socialite, pundit and founder of The American Conservative, who has been making racist remarks—and getting away with it—for decades now. Despite a reputation for venomous rhetoric, his byline has graced the pages of Hamptons Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Press, The Spectator, The Sunday Times, Esquire and Newsweek.

More recently, Mr. Theodoracopulos has been writing mostly for his own Web site, Taki’s Magazine. While the site bears the tagline: “Cocktails, Countesses & Mental Caviar,” it is perhaps better known for a collection of race-baiting essays and blog posts by a rogue’s gallery of politically incorrect luminaries, including Pat Buchanan, Mr. McInnes and Redneck Manifesto author Jim Goad. In early April, the site posted an essay by John Derbyshire called “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” about what children should know about African-Americans (“Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally ... Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods”). Mr. Derbyshire was also a contributor to National Review, but not for long. The Review’s editor, Rich Lowry, quickly cut him loose, writing that the post “constitutes a kind of letter of resignation.”

Mr. Derbyshire quickly retreated from the public stage, and the news that he was undergoing chemotherapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia may have even garnered him some sympathy points. But just a month later, Mr. Derbyshire landed a new gig on VDare.com, an anti-immigration site. His first article extolled the virtues of white supremacy.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center wasn’t surprised by the development. “More often than not, real racism lies right below the surface, and what holds it back is fear of criticism or fear of losing one’s career,” he said, noting that the center considers VDare a hate site.

Such outspoken racism is increasing, he said. “At a macro-level, what we’re seeing is a lot of white people feeling like they are losing their country ... that after Obama’s election, they’re drowning in a tide of color.”

The ethos of Taki's Mag (TakiMag.com)

Naturally, Mr. Derbyshire is still writing for Taki, who a few weeks after the notorious blog post was sitting in the Midtown restaurant Cognac, spooning up pink lobster bisque and chasing it with two large glasses of pinot grigio. Between bites, Mr. Theodoracopulos gossiped about his time working for—where else?—The New York Observer.

“I called A.M. Rosenthal from The New York Times ‘Abie,’ and his wife thought that was anti-Semitic,” he recalled in his languidly aristocratic accent. “How is that anti-Semitic?”

A genial man in a dapper blue suit and sparkling cuff links, Mr. Theodoracopulos bore a strong resemblance to Anthony Hopkins. He remembered being called into the office of then-owner Arthur Carter after Mr. Rosenthal’s wife, Shirley Lord, called to complain.

“Arthur would say ‘What is the problem, Taki?’” Mr. Theodoracopulos laughed. “I’d tell him, ‘The problem is that I’ve run out of shoe polish, Arthur. Would you mind if I took some from your hair?’”

He smiled.

“You get it?” Mr. Theodoracopulos asked. “Because his hair always looked like he rubbed it with shoe polish!”
When Fraser Nelson took over as editor of the Spectator, where Taki contributed a regular column, he jokingly told the columnist he would be fired. “He said, ‘No one is complaining about you anymore, Taki, so why are we paying you?’” Mr. Theodoracopulos recalled, snickering like a man who was having the last laugh. And perhaps he is.

In his inaugural editor’s “diary,” Mr. Nelson noted a change in the air. “It’s not that Taki is conforming to the world,” he wrote. “The world, I think, is finally conforming to him.”

Racial resentment seems especially uncharitable coming from someone like Mr. Theodoracopulos, a jet-setting playboy of good standing. His father, in addition to being an Olympic gold medalist in rowing, was a shipping baron. His grandfather, Panagiotis Poulitsas, was briefly the prime minister of Greece. After a career as a professional tennis player, and a short stint working in his father’s offices, Taki was recruited by Arnaud de Borchgrave, then senior editor of Newsweek, to go to Vietnam as a photographer.

“I didn’t want to work for my father, I didn’t want to be a shipper, or a tycoon’s son,” Mr. Theodoracopulos said of his beginnings in journalism.

He’s been married twice, currently to his wife of 31 years, Princess Alexandra Carlota Sophy von Schoenburg-Hartenstein, and has two children, “who have never disappointed me,” he said. His son, J.T., is a bike messenger; his daughter, Mandolyna, runs Taki’s Magazine. “She is actually the brains behind the site, because I don’t really read the Internet,” Mr. Theodoracopulos told us proudly.

The idea for the Web site came about after Mr. Theodoracopulos ceased his involvement with The American Conservative in 2007.

“At a certain time, I had to take a step back and say ‘Do I want to keep giving millions of dollars to magazines that no one reads, or something else?’” he recalled. Mandolyna, who spent the ’90s working for publications like Hamptons Magazine and, yes, The New York Observer (as a fact-checker under Graydon Carter, who not only hired her father for his original tenure at the Observer, but who went on to employ both father and daughter at Vanity Fair), then took off a decade to work as an interior designer before returning to journalism.

“I made peace with my dad years ago,” the London-based Ms. Theodoracopulos told us over the phone. “It’s really nice to have a family business.”

The only area where she and her father disagree, she told us, was the Middle East. (“I’m not saying Israel shouldn’t exist,” he said, “but they need to give back the occupied territories.”)

“Be nice to my dad,” Ms. Theodoracopulos warned before hanging up. “He’s one of the nicest, sweetest men you’ll ever meet.”

Taki Theodoracopulos with Arianna Huffington (Patrick McMullan)

MR. THEODORACOPULOS can be charming in person, which might explain how he’s been able to maintain some of his social cachet despite his disreputable opinions. Though he credits William Buckley at the National Review with giving him his first job, it wasn’t until he started his High Life social column in The Spectator that he found his niche. “I was a natural,” Mr. Theodoracopulos said. “People couldn’t believe what I wrote in High Life, but I didn’t care about access, I already had access. I knew what was going on. You have to get your foot in the door writing what you know about, and this was what I knew.”

That particular beat has shrunk with time. “Society doesn’t exist anymore ... or if it does, it doesn’t go out,” Taki sniffed. He is ditching his London home because, he explained, the city is “becoming overcrowded with Arabs.” He is more often found in his apartment on East 71st Street and is plotting a sailing trip to Cannes, where, he said, he will be shooting a movie with Norman Mailer’s son Michael.

During lunch, Mr. Theodoracopulos employed a number of epithets for various ethnic and racial groups. The n-word rolled off his tongue. He was unapologetic about his use of such terms, and made us uncomfortably complicit by leaning in conspiratorially and smiling while saying some of the more horrific things we’ve ever heard outside of a Quentin Tarantino film. He expressed disgust for professional athletes: “They have 12 kids and beat up on their wives, and she can’t go to court because she’s black and doesn’t have an education.” He praised Robert E. Lee and condemned Abraham Lincoln as “a murdering traitor.” He chuckled as he told us the story of a controversial Sunday Times editorial he once wrote: “I said that I thought I saw a gorilla once at Wimbleton. It was Venus Williams.”

Asked if he considered himself racist, Mr. Theodoracopulos shrugged. “It was very bad taste, but blacks make fun of us, why can’t we make fun of them?”

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Theodoracopulos’s mouth has gotten him into trouble over the years. “In this country, there are tremendous libel suits ... I’ve lost five libel cases myself,” he told us proudly. “Not four. Five.”
He sat serenely while we probed him about his xenophobia, then worked himself into a lather about the Saudis. “They are the ones who finance all the terror,” he said. “They eat their own shit. And we’re supposed to call them royals? These are not royal families ... I call them ‘ruling towelheads.’”

But even as he flaunted his most noxious opinions, Mr. Theodoracopulos was oddly eager to clear the record on at least one charge against him. Asked about an article in which he referred to himself as a “soi-disant anti-Semite,” he bristled.

“No! Everyone gets that quote wrong, because they don’t speak French. Soi-disant means ‘so-called.’ I am saying that everyone else calls me an anti-Semite!”

As in most matters, his opinion on this differs from that of the media. As The Guardian wrote, in fact, the term is generally translated as “self-styled.” Mr. Theodoracopulos indignantly told us that he had spoken French for most of his life and knew better than journalists what the translation was.

As if to prove that he had nothing against Jews, he continued, “All my WASP friends in America say, ‘What happened to our money, Taki?’ And I tell them, ‘You drank it all away, and the Jews and n---ers were able to get it.”

It seemed like a good time to mention we were Jewish.

“And you don’t drink a lot, do you?” Mr. Theodoracopulos replied with a smile. “You can’t ever say that the Jews are drunks. The WASPS are drunks.”

With that, the Greek socialite motioned for the waiter and ordered us a second glass of white wine. As it turned out, Mr. Theodoracopulos was right about one thing: we spent the rest of the day nursing a massive headache.

Phil Mushnick, big racist (Getty Images)

Phil Mushnick is a man that once garnered the nickname "Mr. Grumpy" from his boss at Fox Sports. That was in 1998, when it was known even then that Mr. Mushnick was a relic. "He’s a throwback," David Hill, president of Fox Sports told The New York Observer at the time. "He sees himself as a knight in shining armor protecting sports fans from the slings and arrows hurled at them by cretinous, unfeeling network sports chiefs.”

But cretinous is a term that applies more to Mr. Mushnick more than sports chiefs, especially after today's rant about Brooklyn Nets, during which he refers to the players as N------, which is certainly a novel way to say the N-word without saying the N-word, but otherwise is a pretty indefensible position all around. Even better is that Mr. Mushnick then tried to defend his statements by blaming the Nets' part-owner, Jay-Z.

From this morning's column:
As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?

Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N------s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B----hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!

When called out by New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, and hilariously on Buzzfeed, Mr. Mushnick became super defensive, whining to Bob's Blitz:

Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don't call black men the N-word; I don't regard young women as bitches and whores; I don't glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand.....Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?"

Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I'M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.

(Same column I provide support for Amar'e Stoudemire at a time when everyone in town is ripping him to shreds. That was my LEAD, too, but what does that matter?)

He then copy-and-pasted a similar response to The Village Voice, saying:

James - did you actually read what I wrote and what I've been writing for 30 years? I don't call black men niggas; my kids never heard the word until folks such as Jay-Z came along. I'd suggest you talk to him about it. What I wrote today was on Jay Z's artistry, and only the wishful and foolish would so badly misinterpret and mischaracterize it as you plan to do. Thanks - mushnick

Ashton Kutcher in delightful, non-offensive PopChips video (YouTube.com)

Thankfully, Andrew Ti and his helpful Tumblr, Yo Is This Racist? had not just the answer, but the definitive answer for everything regarding Ashton Kutcher.

"Ok, for real, when you’re pitching, writing, and producing this, and you’re sitting in a room with Ashton Kutcher as he does his fucking racist and incredibly wack impression, is there literally no one at any point in this process who is like, “hey dogg, this might be kind of racist.”

Meanwhile PopChips was like "Oh, sorry guys, this was really racist," and pulled the ad...probably because the execs at the big PopChip account read Is This Racist? every day.

Round two: K.O.!

Yesterday when The Village Voice('s only full-time African-American) journalist Steven Thrasher threw down his glove and challenged "newbie" Runnin' Scared blogger James King to a public duel over some perceived "casual racism" in Mr. King's blog posts, we were ready to get our Facebook invite to the smack-down of the century. In fact, we emailed both writers and asked for comments.

While Mr. Thrasher never replied, Mr. King told us he would be officially responding in a post today. Which he did, in an article called "Hey, Steven Thrasher, James King Here -- Nice To 'Meet' You!"

So let's check out the stats on that:

Word Count
Mr. Thrasher: 1363
Mr. King's: 2169

Winner: Mr. Thrasher...though both responses are waaaay too long. Keep it bloggy-short, people! Make your points and get out.

Publicly releasing email correspondences:
Mr. Thrasher: No
Mr. King: Yes...in fact, that's what makes his post so long. Mr. King is angry that Mr. Thrasher never responded to his email response over the lynching photo, so when Mr. Thrasher finally did write back after his piece went live, Mr. King published the whole exchange. Mr. Thrasher appears to have backed down from his fight!

I wrote what I felt like I needed to write yesterday, and obviously, I can understand what you're saying and respect your reaction. I won't, of course, say anything else publicly.

It's not my place to weigh in on what you write, and I won't interfere with your work again. As for yesterday, I will have to deal with the consequences of my actions.

If you're still willing, I'm happy to meet you and am in Brooklyn (downtown/Ft. Greene) as well. I have a big feature deadline due at the end of the day which I'm cranking away on, but I'm free in the evening, and tomorrow evening as well, if either work for you.

Thanks for being willing to talk with me.

Steven

Winner: It depends on your stance on publishing private inter-office emails. Now, apparently none of these were off the record by default of no one saying "off the record" , but we'll give it to Mr. King for getting his opponent to admit that he will "have to deal with the consequences of his actions." And agreeing to a drink in Brooklyn.

Being too passive-aggressive to visit the desk of a colleague sitting only several feet away from you:
Mr. Thrasher: Yes
Mr. King: Yes

Winner: No one. These two men have never met (until this Brooklyn drinking takes place!), despite the fact that Mr. King admits in his post:

I know he's got a cubicle near mine, and he may have been at a staff meeting that I attended last week. However, I've never spoken a word to him.

That makes both of you look bad, Mr. King. Mr. Thrasher didn't reply to your emails? Go over to his desk. Though we guess having a paper trail was 99% of your argument here, so you'd be more inclined to keep things in writing. And no, we don't buy that he "may" have been in a staff meeting, since apparently your staff only has one journalist of color. Kind of hard to miss. Also, did you guys not go to your own office parties, because you'd think you would have seen each other at The Village Voice Choice Eats Awards last night.

Ultimate winner: Mr. King, as he has apparently proved his "not a racist" point sufficiently for Mr. Thrasher to promise never to publicly remark on his posts again. (Though he may do so over email, which Mr. King might then publish, making them public.)

Round One!

No, it's not a physical fight, because this isn't the Norman Mailer days anymore, but Mr. Thrasher, a 3-year veteran of the paper, has a few choice words (1363 of them, to be exact) regarding Mr. King's "casual racism" in his colleague's post.

"...new Voice staff writer James King has come to town, bringing with him a dose of casual racism in some of his posts that I think needs to be called boool sheeeyt for the bool sheeeyt it is," wrote Mr. Thrasher in his very long piece today, titled "James King, Newbie Voice Writer: Casual Racist BS Will Be Called BS By (Slightly) Older Voice Writer."

The offenses of Mr. King are grave: he used a Wikipedia picture of an African-American man being lynched with the caption "This is a hate crime" to punctuate his belief that scamming up old people is not; he titled a piece about an abandoned child in Cypress Hill, "Baby In Diaper Found Wandering Streets Of Brooklyn at 2 A.M. No, She Wasn't Selling Weed"; in the same article he referenced a Dave Chappelle routine; he uses words like "ghetto" and "Baby Mama" pretty flippantly. (The latter he used to describe a woman who was stabbed to death by the father of her child, who then shot himself, leaving their child an orphan...so...yeah, bad word choice.)

We're summing up all the problems that Mr. Thrasher has with Mr. King only because it takes a really long time to parse through them in his article, especially when he keeps making statements that undercut his argument like this:

Now, I think it can be argued that King had a point. Indeed, he seems to be saying that crimes against the elderly should not be elevated to the level of lynching, and he's giving some weight to lynching in this way.

But by the time you get down to the "Baby Mama" statements, Mr. Thrasher is full on thrashing:

Baby Mama? Why not just call her "Hoochie Mama," Mr. King? 'Cause the murdered woman deserves no respect in death, right? Because she allegedly wasn't married, had a child in sin, and got herself killed? Is that how it is?

As Mr. Thrasher notes, he is the only African-American staff writer at The Village Voice, so when Mr. King responds to this long-winded pummeling, he should choose his words carefully to avoid another smack-down. If not by Mr. Thrasher, then by The Voice's commenters, who don't seem too fond of the new writer either.

The New York Observer reached out to both parties for comments, but has not received an official comment from either party.

*Despite recently starting at The Voice, Mr. King has been blogging for sister publication Phoenix New Times since 2009.

Saturday we apologized for two references. We have since learned of a similar reference Friday on ESPN Radio New York. The incidents were separate and different. We have engaged in a thorough review of all three and have taken the following action:

• The ESPN employee responsible for our Mobile headline has been dismissed.

• The ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for 30 days.

• The radio commentator is not an ESPN employee.

We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin.

The anchor suspended for his own use of the phrase was Max Bretos, whose use of "chink in the armor" was captured for posterity on video.

ESPN's statement also lauded Mr. Lin's accomplishments and acknowledged that they are "a source of great pride" to Asian-Americans.

If comments on the Observer's website as well as Twitter chatter are any indication, it may still take some time for ESPN to truly appease fans of the Knicks and fans of Mr. Lin.

[AP/CBS News]