Ask A Genius 1368: From Playground Racism to Nuclear-Free Zones: America’s Shifting Cultural and Moral Landscapes

Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/09

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss a disturbing incident involving Shiloh Hendrix, a white woman in Minnesota who allegedly used racial slurs against a five-year-old Black child with autism. The conversation expands to include broader issues of racism, hate speech, social media’s role in normalizing extremist behavior, and legal ambiguities around hate speech in the U.S. Rosner reflects on casual racism of the past, generational shifts in social standards, and cultural changes since the 1960s. They end with humorous commentary on Cold War nuclear policy, Boulder’s civic politics, and the absurdity of symbolic declarations like “nuclear-free zones.”

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So there was an incident in Rochester, Minnesota, involving a white woman named Shiloh Hendrix. She was reported to have used racial slurs. This is for the transcript.

Rick Rosner: The target was a five-year-old Black child on the autism spectrum. The child was visibly distressed by the encounter. Reportedly, he was rooting around in what might have been Shiloh Hendrix’s diaper bag at a playground. I think she was there with her child, who was around 18 months old.

Instead of calmly telling the five-year-old to stop, Hendrix, who fits the stereotypical “white trash” aesthetic (skinny, heavily tattooed, and harsh-looking, though we cannot say she uses drugs), began yelling at the boy and allegedly called him the n-word. Repeatedly. I do not know how many times exactly.

Jacobsen: Is there video evidence of her using that language?

Rosner: I am not sure. There may be footage, but I have not watched it. Regardless, the fallout has been disturbing. After the incident, she or someone close to her launched a GoFundMe campaign. The stated reason? That she was being “attacked” for calling a five-year-old autistic Black child the n-word—multiple times, unapologetically.

The last time I checked, GoFundMe had raised around $500,000 from people who supported her behaviour.

Jacobsen: That is horrifying.

Rosner: It is. Moreover, it is one of those moments where you realize that we are dealing not only with systemic issues, but with a cultural sickness that’s deeply entrenched and being funded.

Jacobsen: So she is getting rich off of being a piece of shit. The platform used was GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site. So far, it has raised over $700,000. The donations were not only financial but also came with racist messages in the comments section.

This led GiveSendGo to turn off public commenting. Meanwhile, the Rochester branch of the NAACP—or possibly another aligned group—organized a separate fundraiser for the child’s family. That campaign raised $340,000 before being closed at the family’s request for privacy.

All of this was entirely avoidable. None of it ever needed to happen.

Rosner: So how do you stop it from happening? 

Jacobsen: I was hoping you would not make me sound like a racial relations expert, but there are institutional responses. The NAACP and CAIR-Minnesota (Council on American-Islamic Relations) called for legal action against Shiloh Hendrix. The Rochester Police Department completed its investigation and has referred the matter to the county attorney’s office for review of potential charges. At least the incident has sparked public discussions, which is good. Conversations about accountability, free speech, and racism in the digital age are not bad things.

Rosner:So, legally speaking, is it a crime to call a child the n-word? Does it qualify as a hate crime?

Jacobsen: That is unclear. You would have to look at whether it meets certain legal thresholds. In general, using an ethnic slur—whether it is “cracker,” the n-word, or anything else—is not automatically illegal. It falls under the protection of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

However, there are important exceptions. If racial slurs are used in conjunction with threats, acts of violence, or criminal activity, they can be classified as hate crimes or used as enhancements to existing charges. If the language incites immediate violence or is part of a physical altercation, it may not be protected speech.

Also, slurs used in professional or institutional settings, like workplaces or schools, can be considered harassment or discrimination under civil rights laws.

Rosner: So if this occurred in a public park that’s also a school facility, it could meet a different legal standard.

Jacobsen: Possibly. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace racial harassment. Similarly, under Title VI or other education-related statutes, repeated use of racial slurs in a school context could lead to civil liability. The fact that the slur was allegedly used multiple times, rather than once, could also be significant.

However, in this case, we are talking about a five-year-old child in a park, possibly not a school-affiliated space. So it probably does not meet the legal threshold for criminal prosecution.

Rosner: Still, the fact that she could raise that kind of money—for unapologetically calling a child with autism the n—word—is morally revolting. Moreover, here is the kicker. You’d almost want to see if she could be interviewed—if she could be reasoned with. Is she someone who, under questioning, would come to realize that calling a Black child with autism a racial slur is reprehensible? Or is she the type to stand proudly in her bigotry, defending “the white woman’s right” to be cruel? That is the line we are walking in America right now. Some people still think there is pride in that.

Jacobsen: Yes. There was another incident—this time on Piers Morgan Uncensored—where a woman publicly defended Shiloh Hendrix and refused to condemn her behaviour unambiguously. To me, this is a symptom, not the root cause.

We are now seeing the downstream effect of specific platforms—Twitter in particular—being reshaped by ownership and policy changes. There was a well-documented spike in antisemitism and other forms of hate speech immediately following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in late 2022. I am not saying everything that followed was illegal, but a lot of it was hate speech.

That trend has continued. Moreover, what we see now in cases like this is part of a broader cultural shift. It is multifactorial. However, one significant factor is the way the Overton window has stretched. Enough that now, a young white woman, with a child of her own, feels emboldened to use a racial slur in public.

Define the Overton window for the audience.

Rosner: The Overton window is the range of acceptable public discourse at a given time. That window has widened on social media—and not necessarily in a good way. There are now enough open racists on social media that someone can call a five-year-old the n-word and still find a community of people who support them. It gives the illusion of safety and legitimacy to their actions. That is dangerous.

Before social media, things were different—at least in terms of public decorum. I always think of my dad in downtown Boulder, Colorado, in the 1960s. Boulder had about 15,000 people then. My dad was a small business owner who spent his days talking to customers and other businesspeople. He was active in the Kiwanis Club, Lions Club, Rotary, and Elks.

If someone in one of those groups—or another businessperson—had started going around loudly using the n-word, even in the 1960s, they would have been criticized or pushed out socially. Now, I am not saying racism was not present. It was. People told racist and ethnic jokes, often in small, private circles. In those moments, people might have used horrible language. But publicly? You would get called out, even by your friends, your neighbours, or your family.

My dad used “Schwarze,” German/Yiddish for “Black person.” It was not great, mainly because it was not just descriptive—it was used to signify that Black people were “other,” that they were different in ways that were seen as lesser.

Jacobsen: Did anyone challenge him on it?

Rosner: No. I did not. I was ten. I did not understand its politics. Moreover, no one else in the family ever called him out either. That undermines the broader point I am trying to make, honestly—but to be clear, he never used the n-word. Moreover, that’s a very low bar. So no, the cultural standards were not exceptionally high, even then.

Jacobsen: So what was your point?

Rosner: The point was that you could not go around being a virulent, public racist without some social cost. Even in the ’60s. You could be lightly racist, and almost everyone was. But not openly, proudly racist in the worst ways. Your community would disapprove, even if only passively.

There were all kinds of jokes—Pollack jokes, for example. I don’t know if you’re too young to remember those. But they were based on the stereotype that Polish people were stupid, like dumb blonde jokes, but nationalized. It’s tragic because Poland has had a brutal history—constantly invaded, caught between empires, and devastated in the 20th century, especially.

However, globally, they ended up saddled with this unfair reputation for being unintelligent. It is an example of how ethnic stereotyping was deeply embedded in humour and conversation back then.

Rosner: So yes, there was much casual, light racism—but there were limits to it. Moreover, one reason was that people had to say these things face-to-face, not semi-anonymously over social media.

Having said that, my stepdad used the term “Schwarze.” Moreover, he wasn’t the only one among his peers who did, but it wasn’t widespread in our community. There were not many Jewish people in Boulder, and not many Black people either. So, usage of the term was rare.

However, the real question is: in using that word, did my dad believe that Black people were inferior? Because that is the core of racism—not just difference, but perceived inferiority. Moreover, I don’t know. I want to think he did not see them as inferior. To the extent he thought about it, he may have thought they were just… different.

I know that sounds apologetic, and maybe it is. However, I would like to believe he wasn’t driven by hate, just maybe by habit or unexamined bias. He certainly interacted with Black people in contexts where they were economically disadvantaged.

Back in the 1960s, the Downtown Businessmen’s Association in Boulder—of which he was a member—owned a square block of the city that was eventually redeveloped into a parking garage. Before that redevelopment, the land had some rundown apartment buildings. My dad had some responsibility for those properties—not as the owner, but probably as a kind of manager or overseer, since he had one or two buildings on the same block.

I do not know why he ended up as the de facto landlord. Anyone who could explain the arrangement is probably dead now. However, the point is that he was dealing with tenants, some of whom were Black, living in poor conditions. Maybe they were behind on rent. Maybe not. Perhaps they were paying $75 monthly for a terrible apartment in 1968. I do not know the specifics.

What I do know is that my dad was not a virulent racist. I want to think he was more… democratic in his assessments. He probably had a baseline level of cynicism about everyone, regardless of race.

Jacobsen: So more of a Larry David type, equal-opportunity contempt?

Rosner: Not quite Larry David. He did not hate everyone. However, he did enjoy complaining about people. Moreover, yes, it was not generalized contempt—it was curated. He noticed who he thought was a jackass.

For example, he thought the mayor—who lived a couple blocks away—was a total jackass. Moreover, because of that, he would drag our poodle, Mitzi, over to the mayor’s lawn to poop. If Mitzi were within half a block and looked like she was about to do her business, he would guide her so she would take the dump on the mayor’s lawn.

Eventually, the mayor sent a police officer to our house to ask him to stop. Moreover, I’m sure that delighted him. He thought the whole city council was a bunch of jackasses.

Moreover, yeah—he was a Republican.

The city council was very liberal, and to some extent, my stepdad had a point. They declared Boulder a “nuclear-free zone,” essentially an empty gesture.

Jacobsen: Symbolic?

Rosner: Symbolic at best. If the federal government had decided to build or place a nuclear facility in Boulder, what could the city government have done to stop it? Nothing.

However,… maybe it wasn’t entirely meaningless. Rocky Flats was a nuclear weapons facility eight miles down the road, between Boulder and Golden. That is where they manufactured the plutonium trigger assemblies for America’s atomic warheads.

Jacobsen: The core components?

Rosner: Exactly. When you build a nuclear warhead, it is not just a lump of plutonium or two chunks of uranium being slammed together. It is a finely engineered system. The plutonium core is often surrounded by eight or ten different layers—materials that reflect neutrons, compress the core symmetrically, and create a precise detonation. Rocky Flats built those trigger components—the “pits,” as they are called.

Moreover, that facility was just seven and a half miles from our house. So yes, the Boulder City Council did look ridiculous by claiming Boulder was a nuclear-free zone. However, at the same time, it was a real issue. All of America’s nuclear triggers were being built practically down the street.

Jacobsen: So his contempt was not entirely unjustified.

Rosner: No, not entirely. It was an interesting time. Our house even had cracks in the ceiling because, at one point, the government tried to do fracking using nuclear weapons. I have told you about that, right? Plowshare Program.

Jacobsen: It was the best of times… it was the worst of times… 

Rosner: It was a very turbulent time.

Jacobsen: That would be an excellent name for a Mel Brooks musical: It Was the Nuclear-est of Times.

Rosner: [Laughing] Perfect. All my dads were in the nuke business—my stepdad, biological father, and real dad.

Jacobsen: That is your opening number: “All My Dads Were in the Nuke Business.”

Rosner: Three eyes, one arm each. Mutants in charge of weapons-grade plutonium.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] You will have to workshop it.

Rosner: All right. Talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for hanging in there.

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