If it really was just joking, why try to defend it with "why is it a shitty question"? Doesn't that kind of imply that it wasn't purely a joke to ask him if it was racist?

Yup. The premise of the joke isn't bad really, but the delivery was. That second girl going back to after the feed was reconnected is what made it a "headline".

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She was joking, but then the "shitty question" comment triggered her. At least, it appeared that way. She tried to repair it with the "we gotta wake you up," which she said almost to make it look like she was making fun of herself or making fun of woke bullies. The fighter bailed them out by hitting himself and the giggling (giggling can be spun in many ways) Hill grabbed onto that shit. So, it's possible that she knew she'd been caught and she very quickly tried to make a joke out of it.

People do that all the time; when they are caught bullshitting, they try to make it look like they are making fun of themselves or making fun of everyone. Unfortunately, people also joke around and then suddenly get serious and use the careless words thrown about in a moment of lightness to pounce. I call this the Real World Gambit, after that chick in the first or second Real World who, while they were all joking around about their backgrounds, decided to get pissy and offended.

It's also possible that the whole thing was a joke, but --> What Zach said.

The silence is violence crowd surprisingly can't be won over.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?