Sweet sandals of Allah! Someone is mocking Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.

Will riots ensue? (Via Heathen TV.)

Michael Lind ponders America’s official, and rather peculiar, racial categories. 

I am a non-Hispanic white, according to the federal government. My niece, who has a black parent and a white parent, is black, according to the federal government. It is not clear what my godchildren, who are of European and Asian ancestry, are. They could be Asian and Pacific Islander, or non-Hispanic white, for all I know. Or maybe they are “multiracial”. The 2000 Census allowed Americans to identify themselves as such. But this should be recognised as what it is – a cop-out, a cynical attempt to shore up the crumbling, unpopular racial-classification system by creating a new, equally dubious “race” with an assigned place at the identity-politics table. Every human being is a unity. Ancestors from different ethnic groups do not make an individual “multi-ethnic” any more than ancestors of different religions make one “multi-religious” or ancestors from different regions make one “multi-territorial”. 

And, 

The way to combat racism… is to stop telling Americans that their most important characteristic, in the eyes of the US government, is their race.

This is published in, good lord, the Guardian. Gary Younge and Joseph Harker will, no doubt, be thrilled.

As I wrote a while ago,

Identity politics… can actually exacerbate suspicion and resentment. If some notional “communities” are being treated differently and being encouraged to cultivate difference for social or political leverage, then getting past a person’s skin colour or place or origin seems more difficult, not less. One is continually being reminded of how different a person is, or thinks he ought to be. A cynic might point out that the racial grievance industry – and the various commentators and lobbyists who benefit from it – depends on people being preoccupied by the colour of a person’s skin. And therefore, one might suppose, there’s an incentive to make sure lots of people are.

Related. And.