Petitions were circulated, leaders called for town hall meetings and the internet was rife with debate — all due to the absurd ramblings of a 22-year-old sci-fi writer in New York. 

People across the nation have lashed out at a 315-word column titled “Why I Hate Blacks,” written by a man named Kenneth Eng. His racist views, published in San Francisco-based publication AsianWeek on Feb. 23, set off a storm of anger, riling up responses from NAACP, Asian American civil rights organizations and prominent San Francisco leaders such as Mayor Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  

Eng’s column is a list of reasons “why we should discriminate against blacks,” citing references to the media, slavery and his own experiences in high school — all without a hint of satire.     

“I only remember one black student ever attending any of my honors and AP courses. And that student was caught cheating,” the column stated.

The decision to publish the piece has been deemed “irresponsible” in statements from several Asian activist groups, and “shameful” by the Equal Justice Society.

AsianWeek has since issued an apology and suspended Eng from writing for the paper.  

“We fell down on the job this time,” said AsianWeek editor-at-large Ted Fang at a February press conference. “We are going to correct that. We are going to make sure that never happens again. We made a mistake on this column.”

Eng’s past columns for AsianWeek include the titles “Why I Hate Asians” and “Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us.”

In an interview aired on FOX’s “The Big Story with John Gibson,” Gibson asked Eng if he really hates all those people, to which he replied:

“Well, I generally hate black and white people, but the Asian article was sarcastic. It’s kind of like the sarcasm I had in my novel [Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate], in which dragons slay tons and tons of humans. But this relates to — in the sense that dragons logically follow evolution so they would be able to wield metal.”

This nonsensical response, as well as others, made for an odd interview with Eng coming across as, well, loony.

It’s still unclear as to why AsianWeek decided to publish his rants in the first place as it was neither spoof nor well-written.

Let’s hope the fifteen minutes Eng managed to scrounge up are quickly ticking away.