>I was disappointed in how racism is apparently becoming
>chic amongst the hipsters. (I guess if they can make Coldplay
>hip ANYTHING is possible.)

It's true, racism *is* chic among hipsters (to a certain extent). At a point, it just becomes too difficult for an upper-class white person to really explore racism meaningfully, because you end up just feeling guilty and helpless, and so it becomes easier to just mock yourself and make "ironically" racist statements. And when you hang out with, generally, nothing but other white people it becomes a little in-joke between friends -- hey, I say racist stuff but I'm not a racist, right? Haha, oh racists, when will they ever learn!

So hipsters can say some terrible stuff and have a laugh about it, because everyone knows you're not *really* a racist and it's just a joke, but at the same time you're just revisiting the same tired shit. I guess you can make some kind of case for making light of those things that people generally don't like to talk about, but I still think it's kind of hurtful, and the real challenge is moving past those traps. That's what Silverman fails to do, at least according to this comic, is actually present anything beyond the shocking slur.

I don't know, I think it comes back to the hipster obsession with trap hop as well. And it *is* kind of telling that I can get away with making racist jokes (I'll admit to mainly making fun of jews, in a blatantly stereotypical way "so you heading back home to continue manipulating the world's money supply? have fun") but if I make similar jokes about women I generally get stares of disapproval and little laughter. And if I make jokes about white people, same thing. Blacks, latinos, Asians, though, those can always get big laughs. It's a weird phenomenon, no doubt.