Via Justine Larbalestier.

When I was a kid, a grown-up was telling a joke. It was a long, complicated joke, involving a motor bike and a car crash and it was, at heart, racist. Various sound effects for the joke were riffs on racial slurs. Like, the sound of the motorbike starting up was the phrase, 'Niggerniggerniggernigger....'

That joke, it was kinda creative, you know? In an ugly way. It was probably even kinda funny. I can't remember it clearly. All I remember is a sense of isolation creeping out from its core. And I'm white. I've got that wacky surname, sure, but I'm white, & I grew up with kids who had wacky surnames. I grew up with my kind, in other words, and other kinds of kids, too. I'm a relatively privileged person, favoured by a whole bunch of social institutions until somebody notices I'm a woman. But I remember that joke, that joke made me sad.

Like I said, I was a kid, & it's one of the earliest lessons I learned, & not a month goes by that I don't reflect on that lesson again: people will turn the best of their talents to the worst of their causes.