Racism is not cool

Dear Hipster:

My sister’s boyfriend let fly a few racist remarks at a recent family gathering, and I’m pretty sure his bigotry runs deeper than that. Am I out of line if I just hit the guy in the face next time he brings hate speech to the dinner table? I’m not a fighter by nature, but I seriously wanted to skip straight to fisticuffs with this guy.

— Blake

Racism is not cool.

I don’t mean that in the sense of that teenage fish on Spongebob who got caught making out with a pillow in the back of his underwater car (“Hey, man, that’s not cool”). I mean that racism actually makes your sister’s idiot boyfriend less cool in the sense that I, as your so-called hipster, am cool. As far back as the wild and unpredictable ’90s, a little intolerance made for amusement. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and people sure didn’t scrutinize their own speech with the political correctness of today. Watch Clueless. By all accounts, a gentle movie, but the use of “retarded” as a mild pejorative makes me lulz. Imagine trying to call someone a “retard” in 2014. Ha! Even hip-hop, formerly the last bastion of socially acceptable hate speech (Eminem got famous calling people “faggots” at the turn of the century) has abandoned it in the quest for Top 40 glory. Thanks, Macklemore. I’ll take my haircut back when you’re done popularizing it throughout suburbia.

Maybe you should try telling your troglodyte future brother-in-law that we are better, smarter, more tolerant people now, or at least we want to be seen as such. His brand of ignorance went out of fashion with 9/11… which is actually pretty ironic, when you think about it. Unfortunately for you, punching one’s way to a solution went out along with un-self-conscious bigotry. As with racism, there’s just no way to be ironically violent. You’re welcome to throw all the punches you want, but it’ll probably make your sister like him more.

Dear Hipster:

Did you watch any March Madness?

—Tommy V.

Nope. Harvard for the win, amiright?