While You Were Offline: Black-ish Shows TV How to Handle Race

Hey, CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter, do you happen to have a tweet that illustrates how topsy-turvy our modern world has become?

What Happened: ABC sitcom Black-ish aired an episode dealing with race relations and blew the Internet's collective mind in the process. Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces What Really Happened: The very idea of a "special episode" of television that gets everyone talking the next day seems archaic these days, but that's what Kenya Barris' show provided this week with "Hope," an episode that featured the main characters discussing race relations and police brutality. The day after it aired, the Internet couldn't help but excitedly talk about how bold the episode was in dealing with the topic. On Twitter, the episode killed (Ta-Nehisi Coates live tweeted his viewing, even, leading to this wonderfully meta moment):

The Takeaway: And they said TV didn't bring people together anymore. Of course, it'd be better if they weren't brought together by a shared sense of dread in an unjust world, but it's a start!

What Happened: The identity of Marvel's on-screen Iron Fist was revealed—but this time, staying true to the character's comic book roots wasn't welcomed by fans.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media think pieces

What Really Happened: The news broke Thursday that Marvel Studios had found its Iron Fist, with Game of Thrones' Finn Jones named as the actor to bring Danny Rand to life in his upcoming Netflix series. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, Jones is perfectly positioned to bring the comic book character to life—which made many people upset.

What Happened: Facebook's boss has to tell employees to stop being racist douches, thereby confirming everyone's worst feelings about tech bros.

Where It Blew Up: Blogs, media think pieces

What Really Happened: Bad things are afoot at Facebook, with a leaked company memo revealing that Mark Zuckerberg has been forced to condemn "malicious" attempts to replace the phrase "black lives matter" on company walls with the phrase "all lives matter".

"We've never had rules around what people can write on our walls," Zuckerberg wrote, "Regardless of the content or location, crossing out something means silencing speech, or that one person's speech is more important than another's… This has been a deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community, and we are now investigating the current incidents."

The memo made it clear that the latest incidents of this happening were not the first, and that the subject had been condemned previously.

The leak was widely reported across the Internet, with it feeding the idea of tech companies as morally compromised in some way.

The Takeaway: Facebook is, understandably, not officially commenting on the situation, but don't be surprised if there's some public show of support for Black Lives Matter from the company in the near future in an attempt to demonstrate that Facebook isn't staffed by bigots. Hey, maybe this is a good time for Zuckerberg to give Kanye that $53 million he was asking for.

What Happened: Never let it be said that clothing brand Lands' End is political. No, really, don't say that—the company is so against that idea that it pulled a quote from its online catalog in case anyone got the wrong idea.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media think pieces

What Really Happened: Lands' End launched its "Legends Series"—"our ode to individuals who have made a difference in both their respective industries and the world at large," as the company described it—in its spring catalog. There was an interview with feminist icon Gloria Steinem, and a line of products featuring the logo of the ERA Coalition, which would earn the organization $3 for each item sold. Seems straightforward, right?

Not so much.

What Happened: Okay, so Johnny Depp might have played Donald Trump in a Funny or Die biopic, but Mindy Kaling knows who the real star of the Republican race is. Where It Blew Up: Twitter What Really Happened: Mindy Kaling proved what an optimist she really is earlier this week by identifying the upside of the current Presidential nominee race:

A quick response came from screenwriter and college roommate of Cruz, Craig Mazin:

Actually, scratch that, because guess who's into the idea?

Some fans have questions about the plot of the movie, as you might expect…

(Actually, have you seen that almost 40% of people think that Cruz might actually be the Zodiac killer? It's gotten so bad that the Washington Post actually ran a piece to debunk the rumor. Politics this year is a weird place, y'all.)

The Takeaway: Look, clearly this is going to happen. It's almost enough reason to make Cruz the Republican nominee, just so that the movie can end on an up note. (Well, until the general election, of course.)