I know all the cool kids aren't supposed to like Twitter, and that as someone who can waste 140 characters on nicknames I should find it particularly galling, but really, once you grok what it's doing, it's a useful form of communication.
I mention this in the wake of the last night's Game 7 showdown between the Washington Capitals and the Boston Bruins. Joel Ward, an African American player for the Caps, scored the game winning goal, and some morons took to Twitter to complain about him in racially charged language.
And y'know what? I'm glad they did. Because their bullshit was exposed and they were isolated and condemned, swiftly and in no uncertain terms (often on twitter itself!). The Bruins themselves even implicitly disowned them.
Now, this is a small thing. This is just a few racist assholes on Twitter. They aren't representative of anything about sports fans, or people from Boston, or Bruins fans, or anything. It's not like this is going to change anyone's mind. "Hey, that racist hockey fan on Twitter has a point!" No. That's not going to happen.
Still, I like it when even the little racist shit is knocked down fast and hard. That's the only way I can be confident that the big racist stuff won't come back.
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