Given that the Cold War has become more of a completed chapter of world history, I propose that we do away with the previous classifications of countries into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd worlds.  Instead I suggest splitting countries up into two separate categories: those who send young people with guitars to Africa and those that don't. The membership application comprises a portfolio of photos of said young people with "the village children". Welcome, Taiwan, to the global upperclass.

Upon checking in to our flight on Angkor Air from Saigon to Siem Reap we noted that we were seats "E" and "G." :( Are we not sitting next to each other?

We were delighted to note that we actually were. There was no "F" seat.

Jess: Oh, I bet that's cause in Khmer there is no letter "f." Vietnamese is like that too.
Camille: Oh, interesting.
Jess: Yea, cause every time I do that MOCA dementia test I have to tell the interpreter to just use a different letter.
Mr. Tourist-Man, overhearing us: Wait, why are there no "f's"?
Jess: Vietnamese and Cambodian don't have the letter "f."
Mr. Tourist-Man: Oh that's why! I've been like, there are no fucking "f's" anywhere!!

Just calm down Mr. Tourist-Man. Surely the disappearance of the letter "f" does not need to cause that much distress.

• That was a long time ago. Just as my soccer skills have deteriorated, it indicates nothing about your current understanding or work on racial politics in this country. Don't be this guy.
• If you have to go back several decades to come up with some evidence of your anti-racism work, then you probably haven't been doing jack shit since then. So stop wasting your breath rattling off part of your resume equivalent to volunteer work in high school and use it to do anti-racist work instead.
• If you feel triggered to remind the person you're talking with that you marched with MLK Jr. something is probably happening that deserves some self-reflection on your part. Save the energy you're spending trying to defend yourself and ask a question that starts with, "Can you help me understand..."
• If none of the arguments above sway you, maybe a pragmatic one will. I guarantee that if you use this in a conversation it will not win you any of the cred that you think it's going to, just eye rolling.

Striving for anti-racism is a "show, not tell" sort of thing. If you feel so compelled by MLK Jr. that you absolutely must talk about going to his marches, the best way to do this would be to call up all the other white people that went to the march with you and tell them to shut the fuck up about it. Feel free to liberally share this article with your friends.

​Please, white people, please. I'm saying the magic word.

PS. In a separate but related note, please stop talking about the time you got arrested protesting like it's a badge of honor.

As I grow older, the less and less I understand about pop culture so UrbanDictionary is a necessary resource. Though, it's also a disturbing window into the sexist and racist minds of Americans. I cannot believe that this was the highest voted definition of "racist." I didn't know Urban Dictionary could be a soapbox. OK, I do believe it.

One of the things that I appreciate about Ann Arbor is that you can actually find affordable parking.  Given the square-footage of Ann Arbor, there's a surprising number public parking garages scattered in all the convenient places.

In an attempt to broaden our minds, one of Ann Arbor's parking garages has this sign next to the the elevator. This is classic Ann Arbor: well-intentioned ignorance. Every time I walk by, I picture some person designing the sign and proudly patting their own back for being so "ethnic" and "cultural."

I don't understand this sign.  Why can Mayan get away with not being qualified as "Ancient" but the Chinese numbers, all of which are still in modern usage, require "Ancient"?

Clearly, this sign has been noticed by other people as well. As a helpful scribbler attempted to point out: Hindu is not actually a language.