Second, I applaud the way Twitter was used in these two ways.

Third, I don’t know the full and correct list of adjectives for Nick Griffin, but he really ought to play a few games of “Britannia” before spouting off on who counts as British and who doesn’t. Is he going to send home the Normans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Scots (who are actually Irish) and the rest of them? What would he do about the Romano-British who are only half-breed Roman and Native? And as for the Celts, well I’m told they started in Northern India and were driven West until they hit the Atlantic.

I don’t go round denying being a racist because nobody accuses me of being one in the first place except as a purely rhetorical device.

This is not true of the characters Amadan was describing.

Nick Griffin claims he’s not a racist. Who does he think he’s kidding?

OK then. Tim, are you a racist?

I’m of the opinion that anyone who denies that they’re a racist is a racist. Obama’s election has certainly exposed the ugly side of the American right.

As for “not intended to cause offense,” that’s the boilerplate response now whenever someone is publicly shamed for offensive behavior. We’ve had two really, unambiguously blatant racist incidents in the U.S. in the past couple of weeks, and in both cases, the perpetrator insisted he was not a racist and did not mean to cause offense. (Apparently, there is a non-racist, inoffensive way to call President Obama a n****r…)