When DeMentis showed up at a vigil for three blacks murdered by a white racist hater, and condemned the killer, the people present booed him for promoting the racism, fascism and Nazism that motivated the killer.

The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that practice it, even if they also criticize it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important — and I label them like this.

A Ugandan man faces the threat of execution if convicted of "aggravated homosexuality."

The article leaves me wondering what aspect makes it "aggravated". You would think editors would anticipate readers' being left with curiosity.

An organization in Hong Kong that promotes the Cantonese language has been compelled to shut after its leader published a fictional story about loss of freedom there.

It doesn't surprise me that the story and its author were attacked. Attacking the organization as well may simply reflect using it for that publication. But it could also be an escalation of the campaign to suppress the Cantonese language. That has been active in Canton (Guang Dong province) for years.

The descendants of William Gladstone have apologized for his father's large role in British colonial slavery and the slave trade.

I think it is misguided to apologize for the actions of one's ancestors. People are not responsible for what their ancestors did, and even less if the ancestors did them centuries ago. To accept blame for things one did not do is a surrender that people should resist. It suggests a desperation that entices hostile people to demand more, as they have done this time.

However, those descendants are right to call for reparations for Britain's past slavery. We can all join in calling for that, because it does not mean we personally accept blame for it.

It was the British government that established policies of slavery and enabled their implementation. And the British government, unlike the individuals who implemented them, still exists. It can legitimately be held responsible today for wrongs it committed before 1834.

To try to compensate wrongs committed centuries ago makes sense only for the biggest of wrongs. It makes sense for slavery because that was extremely big as a wrong.

I have called for the US to pay reparations for slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination in federal housing aid during the New Deal. Those latter two were not as big wrongs as slavery, but they were more recent, so it still makes sense to compensate them.

Yet another American has been shot dead for trying to enter the wrong house, down the block from where he lived.