From the great comic Robot Hugs:

Being prejudiced against Muslims is racist. That’s why anti-Muslim bigots attack Sikhs and why people talk about how things are done in “Muslim countries”.

You are deluded if you think there is no racial component to anti-Muslim prejudice.

There are people that:

Hmm... Why might a white man, who apparently doesn’t want to appear racist, use other terms besides explicitly racial ones? Hmm...

I will bet you all of the money I have on me that when that guy says “Muslims” he means “brown people” and not actually “people who practice Islam”.

Whether managerial positions are promoted from the general work force or hired externally depends on the industry and the individual company. I was hired in as a supervisor out of college with no work experience but where I work now all the supervisors used to be regular hourly folks.

The first job I got out of college was as a manager-type and the first 6 months was spent learning all the jobs of the people I supervised. It was one of the very few good things about how that job was set up.

If it’s a job without a lot of turnover, it’s very possible that 6 years would be the lowest seniority. For example, I have the least time at my current job but the next “lowest” person has been here 4 years. And if seniority is used to determine things like mandatory overtime, it’s likely canonized in company policy…

Do you mean “science people” like researchers or “science people” like uninformed media writers looking for snappy headlines? Because one of those things is not like the other.

There is an important difference between researchers and “science writers” in the media. Researchers will publish something like “this specific protein isolated from egg whites has shown the possibility of reducing this specific kind of cancer in lab tissue” and mass media will report “EGGS CURE CANCER!!!”

People are just so interested and invested. It’s not hostile, but it doesn’t necessarily account for the fact that you’re a person, not an idea. It’s hard to have people constantly reacting to the concept of your situation instead of you.

My fiance is in constant danger of eye-roll-related damage because I will always complete Hamilton lyrics when someone says something (intentionally or not) from the show. You are not alone.

I’ve heard that observation before (that we’re more polarized now than ever before) but I don’t know that I buy it. Again, is it that every one is more polarized or just that loud outliers have become louder?

I can’t really speak to your experiences but if it seems like the world is a more racist place now, consider whether it is actually more racist or whether you’re becoming more aware of the racism that was always there. After all one of the benefits of being white is that we don’t have to think about racism so white…

I dunno... Did you rescue a poor orphaned European child? Did the child have some kind of suitably horrible and/or debilitating disease that still didn’t prevent them from teaching you their beautiful exotic language while showing you the beauty in the terrible war-torn country of Europe allowing you to see the beauty…

A little garlic? I don’t understand those words in that order...

I imagine you’re just lamenting the state of our country but:

Yeah... About that...

This season has felt hurried to me but I’m willing to accept that that may just be because I was used to the slower earlier seasons. I’m glad the show has been able to move ahead so I think this may just be growing pains. Someone made a comment that this is the first season without the “training wheels” of the books…