Typed as I listen to Philip Short, who wrote “Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare” — on Booktv.org, and fresh from watching portions of HBO’s new movie, “Sometimes in April,” about Hutu/Tutsu ethnic insanity in Rwanda.


Besides reading about racism, do you ever have what you’d consider a “racist” thought or feeling? Are you a racist? Honestly, now. How do you and I — and the rest of the world — account for story after story about racism the world over? One example from Jay Rayner in today’s The Observer:

Racist attacks on the rise in rural Britain

Ethnic minorities living in parts of Britain are now four times more likely to have suffered from racism than they were before the last general election, according to one of the most exhaustive studies of race and crime, undertaken by The Observer …

Jews, Muslims and Gypsies tell the CRE that they are under siege in Britain. …


Here’s one take on the issue:

Ben Bowling, professor of criminology and criminal justice at King’s College London, agrees. ‘There’s strong evidence that excluding language used in political rhetoric echoes rapidly down on to the streets,’ Bowling says.


But my purpose is really more to focus — not on the troubles of a nation across the “pond” (because it’s ever too easy to point fingers at others’ misdeeds and atrocities) — but on how we personally feel about, experience, and perhaps encourage, racism. And do we, who consider ourselves typically above racism, also use “excluding language”?

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