Adolf Hitler
Thanks to Arizona’s new immigration law, “Illegal until Proven Otherwise” my inbox has been flooded daily with racially bigoted email forwards demanding “we take our country back.” For the past couple of years some of my more conservative family members have embarked on a political email campaign to spread their form of insanity. Not only has hate speech been on the rise, it has been sanctioned and even encouraged. In fact, the more hateful you are the more likely you are to be deemed a patriot. Pink is the new black and hate is the new patriotism.
KKK Supporting Barry Goldwater
These “email campaigns” go in streaks and started with the presidential primaries and how Obama was not the right candidate,which would have been appropriate except their emails focused on the absurd, inaccurate, and often racially divisive. In fact, some were so bigoted I was waiting for an endorsement from the KKK. Next we moved the birther theory and other right wing fringe theories. I received emails with cartoons of Obama in overalls carrying a watermelon….dressed up as an African witchdoctor, or a rapper. I have even had emails slamming Michelle Obama for wearing shorts while debarking the plane for a vacation in Hawaii because she was not “classy” like Laura Bush. I was even told by a family member that “Obama was going to “require and force all college students who received financial aid to go abroad for two years and do community service overseas in the Middle East.”
We then moved (and stayed for quite awhile) to the healthcare debacle and my inbox went crazy with death panels and killing grandma. Next came the rise of Glenn Beck’s cult following and their attempts through email to shove him and his views down my throat. We moved on to climate change and I became aware though their email forwards, of how evil environmentalists are.
Native American Indian
Because of what is going on in Arizona,I get a daily does of hate speech, bigotry, misinformation, and mischaracterization about not only illegal immigrants but of complete groups or races of people; Hispanics, Blacks, Muslims, Atheists, Lefties,(as my dad calls us) Socialists (anyone NOT conservative Republican or white.) It was not too long ago when Native Americans were thought to the undesirable elements we wanted to expel. We did expel them, to reservations.
Last week brought something home to me and started yet another email war. I had an abundance of what I call hate speech emails sent to me of course depicting ALL illegal immigrants as Hispanics and ALL of them as lazy, shiftless, criminal, moochers on the system and their tax dollars. I receive emails about how we should “be allowed to discriminate at a business and serve or not serve who we please. Really? Is that the direction we want to go? Backwards? My reply to them was one of frustration and sadness, along with a little anger, at how intolerant and misinformed these were and how I felt all of this hate speech was promoting fear and creating a powder keg ready to blow. Whether they are legal or illegal, or the millions of children in between, when you scapegoat entire groups of people you outnumber, it is harmful to the nation and humanity in general.
What followed were a string of nasty emails to me asking “Why I was so hateful?” “Why was I hurting others with my comments?” “Why was I being so mean to my family?” “If I didn’t like something being sent to me, why did I feel the need to reply and not just delete it?” Seriously? They send me hate speech email forwards and they think I am the one who is hateful?
Oh I’m not perfect, for years I was probably somewhat bigoted. Perhaps it was out of ignorance but I was not comfortably around minorities at all. Growing up in the 50s and 60s as a Mormon in Provo, Utah, I really didn’t come into contact with anyone from a different race or culture. My information was mostly from limited TV programming or just gathering information a long the way…..what little there was. I do remember going on some wonderful trips with my mom to Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas when I was still in grade school and seeing a completely different way of life. Restrooms and drinking fountains were separated by signs saying: Whites and Colored. The conditions for minorities were certainly different than I was expecting and familiar with in Utah.. My mom was, at least I felt she was, progressive for her day and made sure I knew this segregation was wrong and yet…..my church was bigoted also. I grew up believing that Blacks and Indians and Latinos were all cursed with a dark skin for being inferior and sinful and Blacks especially were cursed and could not be full members of the church. So…..on one hand I was being told this bigotry was wrong and on the other I was told God had cursed these people. All of this is a little confusing to a young child.
Gradually, to tell you the truth, I just didn’t think much more about it. It was not a big part of my life in Provo. In the late 60s Blacks were depicted and people trying to riot and cause problems but….not where I lived. I hate to say this but really, it wasn’t until recently, the last few years; I have grown to know and feel differently. I started learning about other cultures and listening to their stories. I studied the issues on both side and even the history we have left out from our schools. Things were certainly different in the world than the bubble I grew up in as a young girl.
I was taught not to by my parents to not hate others and yet at the same time by my religion to despise and condemn the others as “cursed.” Now, hate speech is so popular you can become rich just by being an asshole, look at Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. Being hateful, misogynistic, racist and narrow minded has become the new positive qualities we look for in leaders. Hate is back.
KKK Members And African Americans
What has surprised lately especially by this new email war with family and friends, is how I am the one called hateful because I am condemning hate speech. It’s like “backwards day” or an alternate universe. How did we get to this point in our nation where hate was revered and tolerance was deemed wimpy or socialistic? When is the hate filled rhetoric and political spin going to push us toward a race war or towards internment camps for the “others?”
I hope this is just a phase and the latest campaign of misinformation and that it will move on soon so we can go on some other trip to Crazy Town. I fear though, that with this new Arizona law and others in the works, that racism has reared it’s ugly head and it will be staring at us for a long time, at least until we can grow up and evolve as a species and work together. Perhaps backwards day will be over soon and the people who condemn hate will NOT be thought of as hateful……but not now. Hate is the new patriotism.
