I'm black and I live in Canada and I am hard at work at pivoting my business to position it for success. One option I've always considered for various reasons is to move the business to the US. At the same time, I've become increasingly concerned about the level of bigotry, division, and outright hate being spewed publicly by what seems like an increasing portion of the population. At first, I attributed this to TV sensationalism but the more I scour the internet, the more I come upon hateful videos, articles and comments from non-anonymous users.
This all culminated today when I read an article a friend shared about an NJ robber who was choked to death after he tried to rob and subsequently headlock one of his victims. My question is not about the appropriateness or legality of the action on either side. My question stems from the downright insensitive, hateful, divisive, racist views expressed in the comments section of the post on a seemingly neutral website like NY's Channel 4 NBC News: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Smackdown-NJ-Robber-Killed-by-Former-HS-Wrestler-138711694.html
Is this really what America has become? Has the United States become a place where a shockingly large number of individuals feel comfortable with placing their name and image beside the same type of hateful rhetoric that would have been spewed back in the days of segregation?
Why am I asking this on HN?:
I am posing this question on HN because I generally feel that people on HN are rather open and deliberate with their responses. Scoble (after what he felt were numerous personal attacks) chastised this community about this a few days ago but there is definitely a benefit in this - most of the time. As such, I feel the HN community is more than capable of providing me with a response to this regardless of whether or not it's a tech question.