UPDATE 2x:
I've created PoorBlackKid.com. Yep.
UPDATE:
Gene Marks' response: http://blackte.am/tTrP0L
ORIGINAL
I blame Jacquetta Szathmari. I was minding my business, not being offended by truly idiotic ideas, when I saw her facebook post and then blog post about this Forbes article by Gene Marks. I decided not to respond. Today, I broke my silence and posted a few tweets like this
Shorter: If I Were A Poor Black Kid, I wouldn't be a poor black kid #dumbestshitihavereadallyear
— Baratunde (@baratunde) December 14, 2011
and this
If I were a shitty writer, I would write "If I Were A Black Kid" #HowToBeDumb
— Baratunde (@baratunde) December 14, 2011
and this
#IfIWereAPoorBlackKid I would invent cold fusion.
— Baratunde (@baratunde) December 14, 2011
But I thought that would be the end of it. Then I got a request from CNN.com to write something about this nonsense, and so I thought about how I might take on this dumbshitteryTM (h/t, Elon James White). I opted to fight something that originally sounded like satire with satire. The full piece is over at CNN. Here's the setup
The following letter is a response from a hypothetical child to Gene Marks' article in Forbes, titled "If I Were A Poor Black Kid." While completely fabricated, the letter below has a stronger basis in reality than does Marks'. In his article, Marks, a business and technology contributor to Forbes, argues poorly that poor black children should use technology to improve their station in life. The article is terrible.