Because why not.

First up:

A Manchester Mural Was Defaced by Racist Graffiti. Soccer Fans Rushed to Fix It.

This story has been kinda all over the place, even though:

1) It’s Britain, not the US

2) It’s soccer, not a real sport

3) It’s someone I doubt one American in ten thousand had ever heard of.

Anyway, the story goes that a mural was painted of a black soccer player. The soccer player apparently played badly in a recent game of “let’s watch paint dry,” so some fans were upset. One fan painted negative graffiti onto the existing mural. The police were called and are making a big deal out of finding who did this dastardly deed (seems fair to ask if the the British police leap into action *every* time there’s graffiti. Or a burglary. Or arson. Or an assault. Or a grooming gang.). News media around the world lost their minds yapping about the racist graffiti. But, interestingly, finding out what the graffiti actually said is a little challenging. The New York Times article linked above decided that that wasn’t News Fit To Print. But it is possible to find what the graffiti was:

Marcus Rashford mural graffiti ‘not racial’, say police

The word “f***” was scrawled over the huge artwork and the words “shit” and “bastard” were also written beside the word “Sancho”.

That’s… that’s racist? Really? REALLY???

Huh.

And in other news:

Former city council candidate to introduce ballot initiative creating ‘African American autonomous zones’ in DC

Which includes this spectacular line from the proposed legislation:

To deny African Americans autonomous regions in DC, would be denying us our basic human rights.

I have little doubt that there are ethnic nationalists of all kinds – black, white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever – who will watch this with great interest.

That line was followed by these:

African Americans have the right to have autonomous regions because we are indigenous people.

The United Nations defines indigenous people as: “the descendants of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. The new arrivals later became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means.” (United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)

Huh. Once again, I’m sure there are lots of people watching this. Like… I dunno, a lot of English people in London. Or, hell, pretty much everybody everywhere. Jut about anybody is descended from somebody who got conquered at some point.