Go fuck yourself, Rochester.

A TV meteorologist at an NBC affiliate in Rochester, New York was fired after being accused of using an on-air racial slur in reference to Martin Luther King Jr. However, WHEC chief meteorologist Jeremy Kappell says he simply "jumbled" his words during Friday's broadcast. A video posted to social media of Kappell's broadcast shows him apparently calling a park named for the slain civil rights leader "Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Park."

WHEC general manager Richard Reingold wrote on the station's website that the station made a "staffing change" Sunday.

In a rambling video, Kappell says it was a misunderstanding, a mispronunciation, "if it hurts you I sincerely apologize," and then criticizes his station.

“What happened on Friday, to me, it’s a simple misunderstanding. If you watch me regularly, you know that I tend to contain a lot of information in my weathercast, which forces me to speak fast and unfortunately I spoke a little too fast when I was referencing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — so fast to the point where I jumbled a couple of words. Now in my mind, I knew I had mispronounced. But there was no malice."...

I'm so disappointed that my career could end this way and extremely disappointed and the decisions made by my television station my expected a certain level of support from and I did not receive at all

Not the recommended way to apologize, sure, but you can't say he didn't do him. Read the rest

St. Petersburg, Florida.

Facebook user TJ Biandudi posted a video he says was filmed by his mother and sister when they patronized a McDonald’s in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Monday. The footage shows a white man, whom the St. Petersburg Police Department identified as 40-year-old Daniel Willis Taylor, allegedly upset because he wanted a straw, grabbing a young black woman named Yasmine James, yanking her over the counter that separated the two, according to the police report obtained by The Root.

If you want an idea of how these men think, note that the attacker thinks that she is going to get arrested: “I couldn’t control you,” he says.

He was charged on two counts of battery, having also lashed out at another worker while leaving the restaurant. Read the rest

Here's who is getting rich off Trump's immigrant detention camps. Read the rest

Billy Joe White, the owner of Red Rose Tattoo in Zanesville, Ohio is taking a stand against hate.

Red Rose Tattoos has an open door policy to anyone who chose to adorn their flesh with swastikas, white power symbols and other racist bullshit: visit the shop and you'll receive a beautiful piece of body art to cover up your hateful ink, for no charge. It's a small, important gesture that can change the lives of formerly hateful folks in a powerful way. Read the rest

Paul Peralta, the general manager of the Portland Doubletree where Jermaine Massey, 34, was racially harassed, apologized today.

In a statement released on Friday, Peralta said, “we sincerely apologize to Mr. Massey for his treatment this past weekend, and deeply regret the experience he endured,” and added, “It was unacceptable and contrary to our values, beliefs and how we seek to treat all people who visit our hotel.” Read the rest

Jermaine Massey took a seat in a quiet section of the Doubletree hotel lobby he was staying at in Portland to take a call from his mother. But he says he was soon interrupted by a security guard – Earl – who asked if Massey was staying in the hotel. Massey showed him his key card but couldn't remember the room number off hand. This prompted Earl to call the police. Earl is white and Massey is black.

Apparently, Massey was kicked out of the hotel for "trespassing," even though he had paid for a hotel room and already had his belongings in the room. In fact, it wasn't until after the police were called that the manager of the hotel came over to Massey and asked what happened.

"Tonight I was racially profiled and discriminated against for taking a phone call in the lobby of my hotel room at the @doubletreepdx @doubletree. The security guard “Earl” decided that he would call the police on me, the exact reason is still unclear to me..." Massey says in one of his Instagram posts.

And later from his new room at the Sheraton by the airport: "It just goes to show you that racism is still alive and well man. This was a real incident where I could’ve gone to jail if I responded in a different way."

View this post on Instagram

Tonight I was racially profiled and discriminated against for taking a phone call in the lobby of my hotel room at the @doubletreepdx @doubletree.

What the hell were they thinking?

Luxury brand Prada is accused of selling $550 "blackface" figurines. They have charms in their Pradamalia line that are monkeys with dark faces and big red lips, i.e. blackface. The merchandise has now been removed for purchase, though the site still shows it.

Thanks to #blackface @Prada, now you can take #sambo home with you for the holidays #StopRacism #StopBlackface #StopPrada pic.twitter.com/5t2cvosLIF

— Chinyere Ezie (@lawyergrrl) December 13, 2018

Here's Prada's response to the accusation:

[1/2] #Prada Group abhors racist imagery. The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre. They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface.

— PRADA (@Prada) December 14, 2018

[2/] #Prada Group never had the intention of offending anyone and we abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery. In this interest we will withdraw the characters in question from display and circulation.

— PRADA (@Prada) December 14, 2018

On Friday morning, Gothamist's Jennifer Hsu got this video of the Prada store in NYC's SOHO district shuttering its blinds, as a way of hiding the offensive window display:

screenshot via Gothamist/YouTube Read the rest

Because it's always a good time to flog a dead horse.

Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed writes, “The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking an order that would allow it to enforce its new policy barring asylum claims by those who cross into the country without authorization.” Read the rest

Jury finds James Fields found guilty on all 10 charges, including first degree murder of Heather Heyer.

Never forget: Trump said they were 'very fine people.'

During the 2017 racist rally in Charlottesville, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, and killed two of the anti-racism demonstrators his vehicle slammed into. This is what a court ruled today, in finding Fields guilty on Friday of murdering one of those victims. Her name was Heather Heyer. Read the rest

The President extends a lump of coal to our troops along the border, in a gesture of Trumpian holiday slime. A Merry Christmas to all, and to the immigrant children locked in ICE dog cages, enjoy your gruel. Read the rest

For framing innocent black men, a police chief in Florida will go to prison for three years. Impunity is the norm in America for cases like this, so the conviction is a big deal. Read the rest

Working as a delivery driver is an easy path to a long dark night of the soul. Eight hours of folks wondering why their package wasn't delivered earlier, miserable traffic conditions and heavy carrying heavy stuff up flights of stairs or wheeling boxes around tight corridors on a dolly and people that won't get the hell out of the way is enough to wear anyone down.

And that's before bringing racists into the equation.

From The Washington Post:

Timothy Warren was driving his FedEx truck through a verdant Portland, Ore., neighborhood when the man he would soon kill screamed that Warren was going too fast.

Warren stopped his truck. He was exhausted, he tried to explain to Joseph Magnuson that night in late September, and just wanted to get done with his work.

Magnuson was unrelenting and hurled numerous aggressive insults and racist slurs toward him.

That was something Warren, who is black, could not abide.

He stepped out of the truck, and both men yelled at one another.

Magnuson took a swing. Warren swung back, connecting a single blow above Magnuson’s left eye that sent him tumbling to the ground.

Magnuson, 55, briefly lost consciousness, then died later that evening.

When police began the task of piecing together what the hell had happened, they had plenty to work with. Six people witnessed Magnuson's racist rant. Three of the six had seen the whole thing go down, from soup to nuts. Everyone the cops spoke with said that Warren had been driving safely. Read the rest

Phrenology (the fake science of predicting personality from the shape of your cranial bones) is like Freddy Kruger, an unkillable demon who rises from the grave every time some desperate huckster decides they need to make a few extra bucks. Read the rest

Trump's "Operation Faithful Patriot" was a $200,000,000 exercise in which 6,000 US troops were deployed within the USA, to the US/Mexico border, nominally to repel the migrant caravan of desperate, poor, terrified asylum seekers. Read the rest

In the Washington Post, Eli Saslow profiles Christopher Blair, a 46-year-old "liberal" hoaxter whose Facebook group, "America’s Last Line of Defense," is full of far-right hoaxes that he creates and then reveals, in order to humiliate the Trumpist "taters" who spread them; and Shirley Chapian, a 76-year-old retiree who believes and repeats all the racist hoaxes Saslow creates and will not disbelieve them, even when Saslow reveals the gag. Read the rest

Amid a growing number of lethal anti-Jewish hate attacks, including a gun massacre at a synagogue that left 13 dead, a man shouts “Heil Trump” in a crowded theater. Audience members told a reporter they believed they were about to die in a mass shooting. Read the rest