Now, while I do believe that the Right has more outright racists than the Left, it always annoys me when people act like liberals are somehow completely open-minded people who harbor no ill-will or ignorance towards any minority. Thankfully, Joel Stein has helped prove that the Left can be just as idiotic and ignorant as anyone else. (I'm assuming Stein is liberal; maybe he isn't but his article still reads like the typical lefty ignorant rant.)

Part of me didn't want to link to the article because I don't want Time getting more hits off of it. And angling for hits off of a controversy has to be the main reason that they published the article because I simply can't seem to find any logical reason for the piece to exist. It has no point, doesn't make sense, and almost seems to contradict itself at the end. But what it does show is the Left's standard approach to spouting ignorance: pepper it with self-deprecating jokes (or, at least, tangentially-deprecating) and then rely on the age old face-saving technique of "But I have a friend who is...."

And, as one would expect in the 21st Century, Stein followed up his story by going to the place where everyone goes to do themselves no favors - Twitter. His response to the shitstorm his story brought on was:

"Didn’t meant to insult Indians with my column this week. Also stupidly assumed their emails would follow that Gandhi non-violence thing.”

That tweet is the epitome of how not to react when you realize you've done something ignorant. (And trust me, I'm regrettably well-schooled in this.) In short, Stein basically wrote, "Hey, didn't know what I wrote was ignorant. So let me just write something else that's ignorant."

The first problem with the tweet is something that goes beyond the error of saying something ignorant; it's how not to reply to any mistake. If you knock something over and break it or hit someone's car, you can't just say, "Whoops, didn't mean to do that" and go on with your life. (Or in this case, say "I didn't mean to hit your car" and then proceed to hit the car again.) You still need to apologize. Stein obviously forgot that part and, in doing so, seems like he a) thinks that all that matters are his own intentions and not the response that his ignorance elicits or b) appears to be blaming Indians for being insulted. It's like saying, "Hey, didn't mean to offend you guys so stop being offended." (Now, some people might think that I'm reading too much into Stein's tweet but when you say something offensive and then respond via a medium that only allows 140 characters per message, you pretty leave yourself open to others trying to interpret your meaning. If you don't want that, better explain yourself, preferably on something that allows you to express yourself more fully.)

The "You're reading too much into it" defense also falls apart when one reads the second sentence of the tweet. How is someone supposed to read any inkling of sincerity in the first part of the tweet after they read the Gandhi remark?. Stein knows that people thought his article was insensitive, if not outright racist, so making another prejudicial comment (even in jest) in the response is almost willfully ignorant.

Now, to be fair, I think we've all done this at one point in our lives - you say something stupid, apologize for it, and then try to lighten the mood by making a joke about it. But in the case of saying something prejudiced, it's probably best to put forth the most sincere apology and then let the awkwardness work itself out.

I'd go on to point out some of the nonsense in the piece but since I think I've already put more thought into this post than Stein put into his entire article, I'll just move on.