I do try to avoid dipping my toe into political waters when I can, I dont need the stress, my family doesn't need the stress but there are some issues that it just seems wrong to be silent on and this is one of them - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/world/europe/swedish-police-coverup-sexual-assault.html - No, it is not ok to hush up rampant sexual assaults when the perpetrators are minority groups. I am sorry if you are offended by the idea that I think protecting people from being sexually assaulted and raped is more important than the nebulous idea of race relations.

Actually no I'm never going to be sorry about that, it should never be controversial to say "hey, stop raping people". There is a solid middle ground to be found when it comes to cultural understanding. Not every criticism of a culture is a *phobia. Cultural relativism as a concept is valid but not when you take it to the extreme. Yes I feel entirely ok with condemning countries that do oppressive things in the context of their culture and no I don't excuse them of that just because of said culture, religion or whatever. That is reasonable. Make the effort to understand empathise, learn about the culture, but don't give it a free pass on the problems you might think it has. Lemme put it this way. If saying "hey stop raping people" makes me or anyone else a racist, then call me a goddamn racist.

If peoples feelings have to get hurt to stop people getting raped then hurt as many damn feelings as you want. It is time to accept that some people come from cultures that do bad things and that has affected their world view and made them think that doing those things in other countries is ok. Spoiler alert: It fucking well isn't and I'm not going to pretend otherwise and neither should anyone else.