The enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend. — September 15th, 2001. After telling friends he’s going to “kill the ragheads responsible for September 11,” Frank Roque shoots and kills Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona. Despite being Sikh, Sodhi became the first of over 1700 victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes following the attacks. And…

When people show you who they are, believe them. — Even when everyone agreed it meant “awake to racial prejudice and discrimination,” the word “woke” was on shaky ground. Sure, for some, it meant noticing the racial injustice in the legal system and the stereotype-enforcing portrayals of black people in the media. It meant asking why Willie Horton’s face played…

The steadfast immorality of fanaticism — September 14th, 2001. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, several Islamic leaders, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, released statements setting the record straight about their religion: The undersigned, leaders of Islamic movements, are horrified by the events of Tuesday 11 September 2001 in the United States…

Ignorance is only bliss for some. — The year is 2015. I take a break from arguing about the dress to read new, startling revelations about a celebrity’s years-long campaign of sexual abuse. Sources describe the abuse as an “open secret.” The year is 2017. I put my fidget spinner down to read new, startling revelations about…

Please, for the love of God, someone help me understand this. — Regular readers know I like to start with an analogy. Virtue signallers are like overenthusiastic toddlers. Saviour complexes are like Munchausen by proxy. Social media is like a bucketful of crabs. That kind of thing. But I’m struggling to think of anything like the recent cancellation of singer Róisín Murphy. …

Everything terrible all at once. — It’s usually a bad sign when someone speaks (or writes) with total confidence, but I’m totally confident you hadn’t heard of country music megastar Oliver Anthony until a couple of weeks ago. I’m guessing some of you are only discovering him now. In just two weeks, Anthony (whose real name…

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity. — Maybe it’s the prices or the Stepfordesque customer service or just something in the air, but people throw a lot of tantrums in Apple Stores. And frankly, it’s confusing. I mean, everybody knows what to do when a kid throws a tantrum. We know we can bribe them with ice…

Trump never left, he just outsourced. — Like so many things Donald Trump has taken credit for, “Make America Great Again” was somebody else’s idea. Bill Clinton used the slogan during his 1992 presidential campaign. Ronald Reagan used it in 1980. Barry Goldwater used it in his unsuccessful 1962 bid. Presidential hopefuls have been promising a return…

In search of Afro-optimism. — 1998, Nagano, Japan. Surya Bonaly becomes the first (and still the only) figure skater to land a one-legged backflip at the Olympics. The commentators hailed the feat as “truly amazing,” the crowd erupted with delight, yet the judges only awarded her tenth place. A clip of Bonaly’s performance went viral…