You can file this one in either of two well-stocked cabinets: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, and The Internet Is Full of Creeps.
ESPN on Thursday posted a message to its Facebook page imploring its 8.4 million followers: "Let's celebrate Black History Month. LOUDLY."
The post contained a link to a Black History Month ESPN video -- although as Deadspin notes, the video's thumbnail features a player who was the centerpiece of a racial controversy involving an ESPN columnist in December, it features an NFL team called the decidedly politically incorrect "Redskins" and Black History Month is by now 75% over.
Anyway, all that aside, the post offended a great many white sports fans, who took to the comments section of the post to alternately air their grievances with the fact that Black History Month exists, post racist comments about African-Americans and oftentimes start a complaint with the never-persuasive, "I'm not racist but ..."
It's not worth giving many of them a voice here as well, but the following few comments should give you a pretty accurate sense of the situation:
One guy, however, did raise perhaps a legitimate question:
There's obviously an argument to be made that ESPN was doing a nice, honorable thing by commemorating Black History Month on its Facebook page. But there's another argument that putting the call to action on Facebook -- where users are notoriously often vulgar, twisted and mean-spirited -- was a pretty bad call.
What do you think? Give us your take in the comments.