Dear Mr. Morford:
Your column which ran this morning, “How to Hate Barack Obama”, is one of the more hateful and troublesome pieces of political commentary I have seen appear in a large market newspaper. There is always time and room for a good-natured, humorous rant, but – as nothing in your piece suggests you intended this as comedy – what you have written is, objectively, classifiable as pure hate speech.
You write:
“…nothing much for the right to do with Barack Hussein Obama’s moniker except “accidentally” mispronounce it as “Osama Hussein” over and over again on Fox News and at McCain rallies and across Wal-Mart’s loudspeakers so trailer park denizens across Bush’s ‘Merka will get even more confused and panicky and start loading up the bunker with Ding-Dongs and Coors just in case the Muslim radicals take over.”
You accuse a large number of people of intentionally mispronouncing Obama’s name in the hopes of grouping him in with the deeds of a terrorist and a dictator. As you offer no proof of this behavior occurring, you have effectively slandered and stereotyped with the goal of arousing anger.
This is – objectively – hate.
The second half of your statement quoted above contains no less than eight(!) stereotypes. “Trailer park denizens…will get even more confused…” is your most galling fragment; you ridicule the capacity of the lower class regardless of individual circumstance. This is thoroughly repugnant to those who grasp tolerance.
You write:
“…the troglodytic, Limbaugh/Coulter-grade sects of the party… are already hugely terrified of the notion of a black liberal president…”
You accuse several million people of being terrified of the notion of a black President. I ask that you show statistical proof of widespread fear of a black President among this political persuasion. When you fail to find this, as you will, I ask that you retract your smear.
This “troglodytic” sect of the party, which has in the past offered praise to Justice Thomas and Condoleeza Rice, has only stated distaste of Obama’s liberalism. His skin color appears to be an issue only to you, as a tool with which you can generate fear and anger.
You write:
“Assuming Obama gets the nod, just how will they attack him, smear him, paint him as an evil and untrustworthy force for the nation, the way they did Al Gore and John Kerry? How nefarious, racist, draconian will they get?”
I fail to see how you do not recognize this sentence as being a hateful smear itself.
You write:
“[Obama] doesn’t have Hillary’s infamous laundry list of faults and transgressions, the enormous built-in wall of hate the right already has for her, her gender…”
Please offer the evidence you used to conclude that all American voters who are right-of-center – a group which, I must mention, includes tens of millions of women — hates women.
You write:
“There’s no true genius hate artist like Karl Rove around anymore to attempt to unify the racists and the white evangelicals and the Latinos and the war-lovers into one giant, seething, Obama-fearing voting bloc.”
Please offer the evidence you used to classify all Bush voters into these four categories. Again, it is your writing, not those you target, which is objectively hateful.
You write:
“[Race] is the card the right will have to play very, very carefully, as the slightest slip-up in demonizing Obama’s skin color and playing to America’s nastiest, deep-set racist tendencies will offend millions and only make Republicans look like the party of old, white, sexist, racist, classist warmongering men they very much are.”
This is unashamed bigotry, used with the intent of fanning hatred. You reduce people to rank stereotypes.
You write:
“It’s hard to imagine Latinos flocking to the Republicans, given the party’s hateful, isolationist immigration agenda…”
Besides the hateful comments of Pat Buchanan, David Duke, and Ron Paul, I am not aware of any Republican who has expressed notions of hate towards immigrants. Show me proof that Republicans tend to be concerned about immigration itself, not illegal immigration.
When you fail, as you will, you owe an explanation.
You write:
“When they stole two elections for Bush, the brutal, homophobic conservative machine was tightly organized, had focus, mountains of cash, Karl Rove, the backing of a very nefarious, deeply inbred team of ultra-wealthy war hawks hell-bent on taking over the nation and ruling with a flaccid peni- … er, iron fist.”
This is beyond the pale. You may exercise your First Amendment rights, but this is wretched.
You write:
“The sad news is, there are simmering pockets of racist hate in this nation that have never really been tested, pockets of such vehement intolerance and power that it’s impossible to know what demons lurk, what sort of outrage will erupt.”
Please direct us all to these pockets of “vehement intolerance and power.” While there are certainly racist movements remaining in the US, I don’t know of any which hold a position of power, nor one which has offered any mass display of violent behavior.
This is fearmongering.
The pocket of vehement intolerance on display, with power in the form of publication in a large media outlet, is simply you.
I sincerely hope your newspaper reconsiders offering you such a stage in the future. You should have to pay for your own soapbox and loudspeaker, and should be aware that those who are more wise, tolerant, and respectful than you will always be around to challenge your thoughts.
Best,
David
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
