Mapping hate across U.S.Data visualization company Floating Sheep has produced a fascinating map of the mainland U.S. which charts the use of hate speech on twitter. The so-called “hate map” shows the frequency of geotagged tweets containing certain certain racist, homophobic and ableist terms, the end result being an interactive map highlighting hate hot spots across the country.
anti-gay
Community supports gay politician following assault
CREDIT: Advocate.com
Oklahoma’s first openly gay state politician is receiving vocal support from his community following an assault which he says was motivated by hate. Jim Roth, a Democrat who served on the Oklahoma Cortwas assaulted outside a bar by three men who called him anti-gay slurs during the attack, according to Policymic.
Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant's anti-gay slur to a referee at Tuesday night's game has caused a stir. Though Bryant has apologized, he's appealing the NBA's $100,000 fine.
Former gay NBA player John Amaechi responded to Bryant's slur in a New York Times NBA Blog post. He wrote:
"Kobe Bryant isn’t some great, bigoted monster, as some have implied, but he isn’t the innocent victim of some overblown one-off incident about a word that’s 'not even that bad,' either.
This controversy is not a storm in a teacup turned into a vendetta by loony liberals, as many in the sports world seem to think. What our heroes say and do means something — and in an America where sports stars carry more influence and in some cases more credibility than senators, what they say matters more than ever."
In the post, Amaechi asks Bryant to stop fighting the fine and notes the basketball star is "powerful enough to make an important change in the way we look at real equality in sports and in general."