Over at XOJane, bastion of the meaningful, India-Jewel Jackson wrote a meh piece about Paula Deen and “apology culture”. Thankfully she managed to spice it up in the comments when she more or less started up a Who Has Been More Oppressed contest. Hint on who won – not Jews!

[W]ith the slavery vs. holocaust debate, it’s a bit different, as it was ultimately based upon race vs. religion, as in, Blacks were enslaved for hundreds of years, because they were Black. They couldn’t change or alter the appearance so as to escape and fly under the radar. Jews were exteriminated…for not being blonde + blue and because of their religion–the hair and the religion, they could change.(NOT AT ALL SAYING THAT THEY NEED TO OR SHOULD WANT TO IN ORDER TO STAY ALIVE, I’M JUST POINTING OUT THE BASIS OF IT.)

It’s hard to align those two experiences and find common ground because they aren’t exactly parallel. It’s much easier to find solidarity across minority color lines, IMO.

When commenters tried to explain to IJJ that Jews were persecuted by the Nazis because they were considered a sup-par race and thus changing their hair and religion would not have saved them, she replied:

It might not have been easy/realistic, but it WAS possible. Changing hair color is far easier than changing skin color and facial features.

Commenters continued to express disbelief at IJJ’s ignorance, one responding “Possible, schmossible. I’m sorry, but you’re talking outta your ass here”, and several explaining how Nazis rounded up Jewish people of every hair and eye color. She then decided enough was enough:

I’m not sure how I oppressed the Jewish people in my comment, but whatever. I don’t really care anymore.

XOJane commenters continue to try and educate Ms. Jackson while she shouts about how everyone needs to get back to discussing Paula Deen. I wonder if she sees the irony in this kerfluffle happening in a post about bigotry?

Instagram, home to millions of images of food and children, is apparently home to a new kind of image fun – “baby role play“.

It seems certain kinds of people enjoy “adopting” other peoples’ kids and creating fantasy stories. According to  Marco Chown Oved:

In conversations in the comments under each photo, the adopter can describe normal situations like playing with or feeding the baby, but sometimes the fantasies veer into sexual games…Even a cursory search brings up dozens of baby role plays on Instagram, many which describe sex in front of or with babies.

Stealing photos is not a new thing online, as shown by the story two weeks ago that revealed a woman using another woman’s son for her fake cancer blog. The Instagram role playing has apparently been on the mommysphere’s radar for a few months but continues to happen. This has prompted a petition directed at Instagram hoping to stop this activity:

Parents are having pictures they post stolen from their accounts and online. The pictures are being posted by other accounts for role playing purposes. Some of the role playing is harmless, but some of it includes violence and sex acts with the child.

With these kinds of stories happening more and more often it’s a wonder that any parent would post publicly available photos of their child anywhere.

The Warrior Eli Hoax Group, the nickelodeon.com for adults, has been recently uncovering the story of childhood cancer blog “Remembering Reilly”. It has now been revealed that the site, which claimed to be the online journal of the cancer struggle and eventual death of 3 year old Reilly Bowman, was started by a teenage girl:

I’ve heard from the person who is behind this hoax.  She’s a junior in high school and she says she started the blogs after hearing Taylor Swift’s song Ronan…We’ve discussed why what she did was harmful and wrong, and I truly believe she is sorry.

Someone who says “An apology doesn’t quite cut it,” is the REAL mother of “Reilly” – Sarah Gilliam. Photos of her son Jack, as well as photos of herself and other family photos, were stolen and used on the “Reilly” blog as well as on a facebook page for the blog.

The photo was an image of my son who is very much alive and whose name is Jack and not Reilly…It’s shocking to find that someone was using my family’s story to create a very different story, and a very terrible story of their own.

The hoaxster was even designed “Team Reilly” t-shirts. Apparently the girl behind the hoax is “considering talking to a psychologist”, while Gilliam says she is “researching legal options”.

In other news, thousands of mothers are now making their instagrams and facebook accounts private as we speak.

Edit: This post previous claimed the hoaxster was selling t-shirts. The post has now been corrected.

Geoffrey Miller, professor at NYU, tweeted an encouraging message to all you seekers of higher learning who might be carrying a few extra pizza pounds:

Obviously that tweet has resulted in ongoing “WTF??”, despite the fact that Professor Fathater has deleted the tweet and even made public statements:

My sincere apologies to all for that idiotic, impulsive, and badly judged tweet. It does not reflect my true views, values, or standards.

Obviously my previous tweet does not represent the selection policies of any university, or my own selection criteria.

Oh, ok, let’s all forget it then! Or how about the selection policies for professors get changed to forbid them from discussing students?