Nigga Please

Imagine for a moment that Charlotte Allen's vapid piece in the Washington Post denigrated African Americans as stupid and worthless as her hit job on Female Americans and you might appreciate how horrible is is to see this on the pages of a major American newspaper -- especially at a time when a woman is knocking on the door to the highest of glass ceilings.

Is it possible to conceive such a blatantly sexist screed being equally as in-your-face racist and expect the paper still be in operation tomorrow?

Hilzoy's advice to Allen is spot on.

Note to Charlotte Allen: if you find yourself having to argue that you
are an idiot in order to make your case, you might consider the
possibility that an idiot like yourself is unlikely to get much right
about women, or for that matter about anything. You might therefore ask
yourself what earthly purpose it serves to have idiots like the one you
take yourself to be publishing their thoughts. Is your gig at the Post
noticeably different from those game shows in which we get to watch
people humiliating themselves on national TV? If so, how?

Maybe highlighting her self-loathing was the point, and that some thoughtless male editor elected to publish her indictment of half the human race ironically proved her wrong, that men are just as if not more stupid than women. Perhaps she proved you can hate women with impunity but never come close to hating minorities so publicly and get away with it -- or that the entire thing was an homage to Gonzo Journalism of a (thankfully) by gone era.

Or maybe there's a reason fewer and fewer people buy newspapers every day.