This happened.

Did you know that complaining about racism makes you unpatriotic and means that you have a (bad) attitude toward America?

Well, it doesn't, but that's what the New York Post's Abby Schachter suggests.

"Bill Maher pretty much summed up the left's attitude toward the United States when he declared that Barack Obama came up from poverty to become 'the first black president of the racist states of America,' she writes.

For Schachter, of course, this is evidence that, "according to liberals like Maher, nothing has changed in all that time. This country is racist, many liberals believe, so it ever was and so it shall ever be. The election of a black president has done nothing to change our nation's true nature, says the left, because at its heart this is a racist country."

Somehow, Maher's one comment corroborates something about all liberals and suggests that white people get the short end of the stick. Oh, and apparently, the Trayvon Martin case is an example of "the liberal racist narrative."

She really said all this!

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Jezebel's Lindy West has just weighed in on hipster racism, joining the ranks of many who have recently felt compelled by Girls to comment on cool kids' ostensible obsession with all things white.

Now, most of the author's "complete guide" is pretty solid. Basically, West makes the argument that ironic racism -- people pretending to say or subtly implying racist things instead of actually saying them -- has replaced the more overt bigotry of the past.

Some examples cited by West include Navajo panties, white people getting upset that they can't use the n-word for "literary" reasons, and white people thinking that American racism in the U.S. is over because Barack Obama is president.

We totally buy these examples, and and fully agree that this kind of thinking is as smarmy as overt bias.

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Turmoil and tension over Trayvon Martin continues to escalate across the U.S. -- now greatly inflamed by a leaked police report -- and intense discussion of the teen's death has continued in New York.

From Sean Bell to Jateik Reed to Ramarley Graham, the NYPD has long had a very strained relationship with young men of color.

The New York Civil Liberties Union feels that these cases emphasize the need for reform in the NYPD. The organization says that current policing tactics disproportionately target blacks and latinos. NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman chatted with Runnin' Scared about how the Trayvon Martin incident affects civil rights and law enforcement in the city. (Runnin' Scared also reached out to the NYPD for comment. We'll update if we hear back.)

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As New York and the rest of the nation demand answers about Trayvon Martin's death, Councilmember Charles Barron delivered a message on the steps of City Hall this afternoon that was alternatively angry and somber.

Barron, joined by Ramarley Graham's parents and the family of Jateik Reed, asked that the February killing of Graham not be forgotten in light of the Sanford, Fla. shooting. Barron, alongside councilmembers Jumaane Williams and Melissa Mark-Viverito, voiced solidarity with Martin's relatives, calling for police accountability and an end to racial profiling.

But Barron, as well as the other electeds and community leaders present, delivered yet another message: Blacks and latinos had had enough, they said, and tension in New York's minority communities could soon come to a critical point.

Indeed, talk at the press conference quickly moved from Ramarley to riots.

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More black and Latino students got into New York City's top high schools than in 2011, putting a halt to several years of decreasing admits among these demographics.

The New York Times reports that Education Department stats show that 730 black and Latino students were admitted to top-tier institutions such as Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science -- 14 percent more than in 2011 and 12 percent more than in 2010.

Blacks got 6 percent of admission offers, while Latinos got 8 percent.

Asians got the highest number of offers for specialized high schools -- 46 percent, according to the Times -- while whites got 23 percent.

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via SB Nation

The New York Knicks' mega popular new point guard Jeremy Lin said today that he's "overwhelmed" by the heaps of praise being thrown upon him after his seven game winning streak. Even President Obama said that he was impressed by Lin this week. Perhaps that stress got to him, as the Knicks lost to the New Orleans Hornets last night. So how does the media cover Lin's first loss? Well by continuing to ride the barely-there line of racism ("AMASIAN") that has existed since Lin's debut. ESPN jumped right over that line this morning on their moblie site by using "Chink in the Armor" for their headline. Oy.

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As Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne continue to deal with fallout from the use of the anti-Muslim film The Third Jihad in NYPD training, some Muslim groups are beginning to call for their resignations. A protest organized by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) met outside City Hall yesterday to demand corrective action by the NYPD. Runnin' Scared talked to Cyrus McGoldrick, the Civil Rights Manager for CAIR, about the group's concerns.

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Straight from the files of "Historical Shit That Can't Be Made Up," we woke up this morning to a pretty unbelievable email from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation with the subject line, "Taste: Chocolate at Monticello."

Oh my, we thought, before opening it. Surely someone in TJ's PR office might be sensitive to and knowledgeable enough of, er, certain Jefferson proclivities to be wary of harping about his "taste" for chocolate!?

Apparently not.

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Yesterday, graphic designer, vlogger and comedian Franchesca Ramsey posted her video "Shit White Girls Say...to Black Girls," the latest (and to us, the funniest) YouTube video riff on "Shit Girls Say." It got over 1.5 million views its debut day. The Voice spoke to Ramsey by phone this morning to chat with her about her YouTube videos, being accused of hating white people (even though she's engaged to one), and her flap with Perez Hilton.

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Earlier this year, we wrote about how a bevy of civil rights groups like GLADD and the NAACP supported, inexplicably from our point of view, the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. That deal fell apart yesterday, and the telecoms will not be combining forces after all. One civil rights group that never supported that union was Color of Change, who sent a petition with 53,000 signatures to the FCC to oppose it. The Voice spoke with the group's Executive Director Rashad Robinson, who is both a member of the NAACP and former employee of GLAAD, about Color of Change's relief that the merger went down.

Here's an edited transcript of our phone interview.

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