Free Republic

The true appeal of the new "Joker" movie lies in its invidious validation of the white-male resentment that helped bring President Trump to power, writes Jeff Yang for

You've probably already read about how "Crazy Rich Asians" is the first major studio release to feature an all-Asian cast in 25 years -- since The Joy Luck Club accomplished that feat in 1993. And yes, this movie is a singularly special and important event for those in the Asian-American community, who are finally beginning to sense a change in an industry that has, over the past quarter century, seemed afraid of putting more than one of us onscreen at once for fear of somehow freaking out or turning off non-Asian viewers. (Don't look now, but "Crazy Rich Asians" serves...

There are few uglier phrases in the modern conservative lexicon than "anchor baby," not least because of the literal imagery the term brings to mind of a human infant, wrapped in chains and flung overboard to secure a vessel in place. But even as a figure of speech, it's a despicable concept. It refers to the notion that undocumented immigrants exploit the quintessentially American policy of birthright citizenship, which confers the status of citizen to anyone born on U.S. territory, by sneaking across the border to give birth to their children. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush recently stumbled into the...

...Nevertheless, China has been portrayed as a nation blind to hygiene and blissfully unconcerned about recent reports of food contamination. That's troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture. Chef and gustatory adventurer Anthony Bourdain may have said it best in a 2006 Salon interview in which he noted that there's "something kind of racist" about culinary xenophobia: "Fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of unnamed dirty people." And this, in turn, spells danger. What one might call "food libel" has long been an aspect of a larger fear...