Many would argue that the incidents that I describe are trivial; people were just making harmless jokes. But racism, especially the internalized racism reflected by the barber and Sheryl Underwood, is not always as obvious as a hooded Ku Klux Clansman burning a cross on a black family's lawn. It can be more subtle, but just as pernicious, when it manifests as the unacknowledged racial assumptions that underpin jokes.

I really related to the situations depicted in this piece. I have a feeling that this will be the next frontier of the the race conversation in this country. See also: the mounting public pressure to finally convince the Washington, D.C. professional football team to change their name. Is that name racist in the burning-cross-on-the-front-lawn sense? No, probably not. But just because we've moved far enough away from the history that at one point made it that kind of racist, doesn't mean that it isn't racist anymore.

Joe Stracci