June 10, 2010

Have the sheep conquered racism?

One certainly doesn't need to look far to see evidence of the persistence of racism in our world today. And while it may not seem obvious, our kindred sheep (of the non-floating variety) are no strangers to such discrimination. How would it feel to literally be a black sheep? Probably not so good.

In a surprising move, it appears the sheep of the world (or humans, acting as a proxy for their fleeced friends) have made a concerted effort to counteract such pervasive racism in the virtual realm. As the map below shows, at all but around 100 randomly distributed points on the earth's surface, Google Maps references to "sheep" outnumber references to the infamous "Ku Klux Klan".
Sheep contra the Ku Klux Klan
This map, of course, does not take into account the potential that many of these references to sheep are actually related to an ongoing intra-species dispute over whose wool is the finest of all, a dispute indubitably wrapped up in its own forms of racist and nationalist language, thus only perpetuating the racism they have seemingly defeated. If only we could decipher all those placemarks that just say "baaaaaaaaaahh".

2 comments:

  1. Love it.
    Especially valid in my USA, particularly the deep south - where most KKK references seem to occur. Not so much... for the rest of the globe. Try 'nazi' and you'd surely get a much different profile. (Scary, I'd bet)

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  2. I love this site.
    To embellish on Curtis' point, the KKK is a US phenomenon. Perhaps 'white supremacy' would be more relevant globally.
    Have a nice day!~

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