I posted this comment on the Haiti thread, but I wanted to repost it here. I'm guessing it will be deleted, more out of embarrassment than anything else. I know there's jokes going around that the Brojos are racist, but they are also business owners, and I would imagine that they must understand that there's a real problem, here. Before this thread is deleted, I am hoping others can chime in on what could be done. Racists will obviously post garbage here as well, but I expect that and can sift through it.
It's really eye-opening reading the Haiti thread. I used to think (hope) that the racist crap spewed on LRC was mostly people with terrible, immature senses of humor, trying to be funny.
Now I realize there is a large and real racist contingent on LRC, and they aren't messing around. They are dead serious and very racist, and it's actually more scary than disappointing to understand that people I talk about running with and joke around with on innocuous troll threads are hidden (on those threads) full-on, hardcore racist scumbags.
If it gets much worse, and racists attract racists, where will this site be in a few years? I've been here since 2001, so don't tell me it's always been like this. It hasn't. The racist stuff has steadily got worse over the years, and is now reached the point where it is very noticeable to anyone who visits here within a short time.