Take a look at Amanda Marcotte's hate mail (Paul Bernard of Scottsdale, Arizona writes "i like the way you trash talk i don’t particularly want to have sex with you but i would like a blow job") -- pretty mind-blowing stuff.
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Nice Guys
14 Feb 2007 10:15 am
Comments (77)
I guess Al things rape is a laughing matter.
I doubt anyone is too suprised at hisscumbaggery though.
It's all pretty nasty stuff, but it seems a little cheap to post the most knuckle-dragging emails to make one's point. Of course, this case is a little different since Amanda's point is about the harrassment she suffered--much of it in the form of absurdly offensive emails. But nasty comments are the way of the blogosphere, and I'm sure Marcotte can read a venemous email without any lasting damage to her psyche.
While it's easy and tempting for Marcotte to play the victim here--and she certainly is one to a degree--she's awful quick to lay claim to martyrdom. Engaging only those critics of hers who want to rape her into silence is a too-easy way for her to remove any blame from herself for this mess she's in.
I have to say I am actually very torn on this.
On one hand:
1) The people writing these are obviously unstable and unhelpful people who have no one to blame but themselves.
2) Women obviously receive more threats like this than public men, and it’s really bad that this is one more factor discouraging women from being public figures.
On the other:
1) Let’s not pretend that right-wingers don’t also receive hate mail from crazy liberals, or that the right-hate-mail is any more indicative of their philosophy than left-hate-mail is of ours. Maybe if there was some objective way of measuring which group generates more hate-mail in equal circumstances we could say “ha, the right is obviously less civil than us”, but otherwise it’s just a pox on both houses right now.
2) Purveyors of hate get this more. Both Michelle Malkin and Amanda do in fact write over the top rhetoric designed to make their opponents in the audience lose control (intellectually speaking). At least, I certainly feel this is true about Coulter, right wing hate radio, etc, and am willing to acknowledge it might be true for the left.
None of this is blame the victim mentality, but the conclusion really seems to come not “it sucks that the left receives hate mail” but “it sucks that women of both sides of the political spectrum receive hate mail”.
Agree with Tony V.
Where's the claim to martyrdom? Where's the claim that it's a right wing inflicting this on left wing phenomenon?
You shouldn't holler before you're stuck.
WOW Matt! You mean to say that there are some fuckin fucktards on the right capable of wrtiting the same sort of hyperventilated and vile "satire" as Amanda?!
Or is that a vice versal?
Do you think that she'll be paying them for their contributions to Pandagon?
Whatever. She loves getting this kind of stuff. It validates her hate of the right wing and gives it importance.
JD--
She doesn't actually say "I am a martyr" or "Forgive them for they know not what they do," but I think it's pretty hard to read that post without getting the feeling that Marcotte is setting herself up as the victim of patriarchal forces that couldn't tolerate her. Which, again, is true in a sense, but glosses over a lot of what her role was in this controversy.
Oh for chrissakes, Marcotte isn't posting these because she wants people to see that she's being insulted and getting hateful mail; she's been getting hateful, insulting emails for quite some time and doesn't make a habit of quoting from it except as the occasional starting point for some riffing of her own. The point here is that these people are demonstrably hypocrites. It's a banal point but a persistently true one; a great number of the people who speak most vociferously "in defense" of their faith don't remotely conduct themselves in accordance with what are commonly understood to be the values of said faith. The point in posting these isn't to throw a pity party for herself, but to demonstrate that the authors of these emails by and large aren't worth taking seriously.
"i like the way you trash talk i don’t particularly want to have sex with you but i would like a blow job"
i'm willing to admit that there are some on the left that are capable of writing something like this, because, like you said, the internet breeds trash talking. but come on! on it's face, this just wreaks of phony. the lack of ability to execute proper punctuation (which, if you look around on the internets you quickly realize is a STAPLE of wingnuts), the fixation with oral sex, the sexism, the fact that this person is from arizona. etc.
i don't buy it, basically.
...this just wreaks of phony. the lack of ability to execute proper punctuation..., the fixation with oral sex, the sexism, the fact that this person is from arizona
someone needs to check the kerning!
Jeffrey Davis,
What is the purpose of posting these ridiculous emails? I don't know for sure that martyrdom is the purpose, but it seems to explain something that would otherwise be unexplainable to me. So I'm open to other ideas.
If those other ideas are something like, just look how crazy people are, well, OK, what does that add?
This just seems like more of the same: focus on the stupidest statements made by your stupidest detractors and that way you can never be wrong.
Like another poster said above, right-wingers probably get crazy emails too. And if this very likely phenomena takes place, where does that leave us? Seems like we have to go ahead and evaluate their words in spite of the fact that crazy people get way out of hand.
It just seems like there is some implicit point in posting these emails to begin with.
The things Marcotte says, on the other hand, like that Nascar has become a symbol of white supremacy, like God filling Mary with his white, hot, sticky Holy Spirit, like asserting that she knows that the accusor in the Duke case was held down and "fucked against her will," like saying that North Carolina is a part of the country where women and black people are seen as objects to be used and abused, (right before she moved there to fill a PR position with the former Senator from North Carolina)), these things were said by a person who ran a popular blog and got a communications job with a presidential campaign. That makes her words relevant in the way that some jackass' emails are not.
There are ridiculous people on both sides. Just pointing out the behavior of the other side doesn't pay the rent. If the only arguments anyone can come up with are those horrible and personally offensive emails, then OK, that would be relevant. But there are more subtantive people than Donahue making more subtantive arguments than these emailing jackasses, yet virtually all the Marcotte sympathizers I've interacted with see no disctinction between Bill Donahue and these dumbasses emialing Amanda Marcotte on the one hand, and people who aren't right-wing nutjobs and who don't personally insult Amanda Marcotte yet nevertheless have serious problems with her words, on the other.
Wow. I'm kind of amazed at the comments here.
Seems to me:
1. These emails are real (or, entirely plausible, and there's no evidence or history to suggest Amanda is making them up.)
2. No straight man would receive this kind of sexual hate mail.
3. There's an obvious contradiction between both Donohue's generic claims for respect and courtesy and the specific tenets of Christianity and the tone of these emails. (Amanda's point in posting them, for those who missed it.)
4. It should not be presumed to be the case that liberals/leftists send similar hate mail to high-profile conservatives. Where are the examples? While e.g. Megan McArdle claims to have gotten nasty messages, she's strangely reticent about sharing them.
5. If Amanda has really gotten all tehse ansty emails, in the volume she says -- and again the presumption ahs to be that she's telling the truth -- that's something she's fully entitled to share with her readers, who are presumably interested.
I really don't understand where Jay, Ben, Tony, and the usually sound SCMTim are coming from here.
2. No straight man would receive this kind of sexual hate mail.
Except that ProteinWisdom dude, obviously.
Lemuel:
1. Sure, it's stupid to claim that any hate doesn't exist as you will trivially be shown to be wrong.
2. See response to #1. Although obviously straight men get less, they still get threats.
4. See response to #1.
I would bet $5,000 that michelle malkin has gotten sexually threatening emails. Gimme an hour to go look.
5. Amanda can do whatever she wants with them. I'm just curious what lesson MY takes from them.
But yeah, the best comment so far seems to be: "This just seems like more of the same: focus on the stupidest statements made by your stupidest detractors and that way you can never be wrong."
LP--
1) I'm assuming all emails and facts in that post are true and correct as well
2) It's rude and crude and fairly stupid to send such emails to someone accused of rudely offending an entire religion
3) People are rude and crude. And stupid. Yeah, it's hypocritical to send her such stuff, but so what? People are hypocritical and stupid all the time. I don't think it adds to her defense to point out just how imbecelic some of her opponents are.
I think her point could have been made without posting all of those emails, the cumulative effect of which was to set herself up as the victim.
4) As I've said before, she is a victim, to a degree. But as others have also said, this is the game she plays. She writes inflamatory stuff all the time, and provokes inflammatory responses. She revels in this. To be shocked (shocked!) at the response she's earned now is slightly disingenuous.
5. And I think it's all beyond the point. Every promient commentator gets hate mail. It's a damn shame, especially when it's so sexist. But it's very, very, very easy to make oneself look good when you post so much of it. There were some people who did pose vaild criticism of her writing, and I think she made some obvious errors of judgment, especially continuing to write for Pandagon even after the initial outrage. Discussing that, and not her moronic haters, would be a more honest way to discuss things, I think.
6) Though it isn't really relevant, the left sends some pretty nasty emails too. Michelle Malkin--intellectually detestable as she may be--often gets called a slut, is accusued of having her husband write her blog for her, and faces an added racist component to her hate mail. I don't know if it's worse that what Marcotte got, but it isn't pleasant.
But yeah, the best comment so far seems to be: "This just seems like more of the same: focus on the stupidest statements made by your stupidest detractors and that way you can never be wrong."
I'm trying to recall - isn't there some phrase that some (Matthew?) have used for a post that basically quotes some of the stupid things that commenters in a comment thread say? Was it Instapundit (or someone else?) who would occasionally post comments from Daily Kos threads and say how awful those people on the other side were? Dang, I'm going senile - the word/phrase to describe that is on the tip of my tongue.
Meanwhile, Frank Gaffney calls for the execution of Congressmen for Treason yet no-one campaigns for him to be kicked off Fox.
Re: It should not be presumed to be the case that liberals/leftists send similar hate mail to high-profile conservatives. Where are the examples?
Malkin's wikipedia entry leads me in five seconds to this post, which seems to be on a par with Marcotte's.
I love the way people like Andy Driggers use their own name when sending in their charming missives ("you just need a good fucking from a real man" etc.)... Doesn't he worry this sort of stuff is going to catch up with him?
Posted by: Al on February 14, 2007 12:44 PM
So should Malkin resign for venting her spleen also? She writes some very pretty invective as well
Marcotte resigned from Edwards campaign because of things she had written before she was employed there due to a smear campaign orchestrated by someone who has made offensive remarks about "Jews in Hollywood" and homosexuals. So he's not really a good arbiter of morality or civility is he?
Painful as it is, I have to concede Al is right: Prominent female bloggers on the right also get hate mail. I shouldn't have sugegsted otherwise -- it's a distraction form the real issue here, which is the continued widespread existence of vicious misogyny, and the puzzling attitude of many that it's no big deal.
Lemuel, so what? That doesn't change anything at all. Wrong is wrong. So what if someone said something wicked about Michele Malkin, that doesn't make thinly vieled rape threats against these two acceptable.
Als real point would seem to be that it does.
This from Melissa - "There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats."
With vitriol AND VEILED THREATS.
I think it was the threats that pushed Melissa to resign. I tried to imagine how it must feel to believe that the well being of people you love has been placed in jeopardy. That the lunatic fringe of a already violent cult has targeted your family for harm.
I think I would be very ill.
Jake
It bears mentioning, in light of Jake's comment above, that it is invariably the visible right-wing commentators that use violence in their rhetoric- as long as we're removing "the stupidest statements made by your stupidest detractors".
I have to agree with the other LP on this one. This hate mail is newsworthy because it stems from a medium-profile public figure who campaigned to have her fired on the ostensible grounds that she's a foul-mouthed bigot. Yet the movement he represents has shown itself to also be full of foul-mouthed bigots. These people obviously aren't angry at Marcotte because she talks dirty. They're angry at her because she's an aggressive atheist and feminist who doesn't treat their sacred cows with respect.
Marcotte deserves some of the heat she's taking. She was crude and deliberately provocative, and what goes around comes around. But no one deserves this type of mail. It just goes to show that she's dead right about Donohue. He poses as a man of faith defending the tender feelings of kind, sensitive religious people. In actuality, he's lobbing hate-fueled grenades in a culture war against secularism, liberated women, and all the changes in our sexual mores over the past 40-odd years. He had no reservations about slandering Melissa McEwen and dragging her through the mud to claim an extra scalp, either.
This is bigger than Amanda Marcotte. Misogynist anger seems to turn up with depressingly regularity when allegedly progressive commenters write about Michelle Malkin or Ann Coulter. It turned up frequently when Amy Sullivan posted on Political Animal, from both the left and the right. And female bloggers of all stripes seem to be subjected to this sort of shit on a regular basis. It's not acceptable, and it's not excusable. And it's important to shine a light on these cockroaches every once in a while.
Amanda's point is that she's getting violent -- especially sexually violent -- emails in bulk from these supposed defenders of the Catholic faith. That is, that the Catholic faith apparently produces people who respond to criticism of their religion with threats of sexual violence, and a very large number of them. Her contention is that this is support for her views regarding the patriarchy, and she's absolutely right.
I agree with lemuel pitkin. That Right Wingers get the same kind of crazy hate mail doesn't make it acceptable when a Left Winger, no matter how vitriolic or "how much she deserves it" gets the same.
It's not acceptable, it's just clearly not a statement on the quality of the philosophy.
The right is happy to yell that all the racist, sexist, and violent email from left-wing crazies shows the Left as a whole does not actually stand for egalitarianism and pacifism. This is stupid.
So is saying that these emails stand for what the Catholic faith stands for and wants people to be like.
Let me get this straight:
Profanity and sexual explicitness from right-wing nobodies: bad
Profanity and sexual explicitness from a lefty blogger praised by one of her peers (Ezra Klein)as "gifted, expressive, and wide-ranging": good
Thanks for the tip.
This episode has really revealed the dark hearts of many liberals like Matt whom I previously liked.
Als real point would seem to be that it does.
Where did I say that??? I don't think it is acceptable when people email Malkin in that manner, and I don't think it is acceptable when it happens to Marcotte either. My pointing out that this isn't confined to Marcotte doesn't imply that I find it acceptable.
I don't think anyone has a problem with either "profanity" or "sexually explicitness"; it's the use of sexually explicit threatening images. This is a problem even if you think that the actual threat from people using such threatening images isn't very great. I don't know why that's hard to understand.
I'll bet the kindly Mr Bernard listens to Rush Limbaugh for three hours a day. Feel the hate!
Someone should track down the names or addresses of the mothers of these guys. And then someone should mail a printout of the son's email to the mother.
No need to get them fired or anything. Just let their moms read what they wrote.
"...Michelle Malkin could form a support group."
It's true that right-wing people have recieved really disgusting hate mail just like this, but Michelle Malkin is probably not the best example to mention, since she has also encouraged her followers to send this kind of correspondence to her various enemies.
wow. you all should read through these comments and then consider why it might be that no women appear to have contributed to this thread and, indeed, seem to be generally rare specimens at MY.com.
I'll give you a hint: random chance is a vanishingly small possibility.
I'll give you a hint: random chance is a vanishingly small possibility.
Insofar as people have spent most of the time acknowledging that women get weird and creepy hate mail because of their gender and decrying that same fact, and insofar as you seem to be suggesting the reverse or something otherwise untoward, it would probably be helpful if you either made your point explicitly or just fucked off.
Everyone seems to be triumphantly proclaiming that this is not a left-right issue, somehow missing that it was never presented as such. Malkin may play that card, but after all, she's the one with a book called "Unhinged" to sell so it's no surprise.
There is some measure of irony in the fact that these people get offended by anti-Christian rhetoric when they don't seem to conduct themselves in a very Christian way.
But the real point is that women, on both sides of the ideological fence, seem to inspire all these nasty sexual threats when similarly situated men seldom get threatened with worse than an ass-kicking. But when a woman pisses people off, allusions to rape and blowjobs start flying fast and furious. Doesn't it say something bad about men, considering you never see women threatening rape?
James Karbala: Spare me your "dark heart of liberalism" bullshit. You would murder liberals if you could get away with it, so shut the fuck up.
Almost every comment here is total bullshit. The fact that Malkin gets rape-themed hate mail like Marcotte is the fucking point. Men feel entitled to threaten women that piss them off with rape. Supposed Catholic men filled with their own righteousness because Marcotte said something bad about the Virgin Mary are using rape-filled invective, which proves that everything they said about being motivated by Catholicism was 100% bullshit. They're motivated by their hatred of women.
I generally delete email that says 'I hate you and hope you die.'
Why bother to read this stuff?
Back up a second Matt, by picking a few emails, are we the liberals now complaining that conservatives are too uncivil to talk to? I thought that was their bogus talking point about us!
Also, someone says, "2. No straight man would receive this kind of sexual hate mail."
That's true. What straight men receive is homophobic hate amil and not heterosexual hate mail. Mail like:
"Go fuck yourself"
"I hope someone fucks you in the ass"
"You are a faggot"
"You are a pussy"
Did I believe Malkin when she said she got hate mail and death threats from the left. Yeah. Did I believe Marcotte when she said she got hate mail and death threats from the right? Yeah.
So what are we doing here? Mainly playing the victim card.
All those biographies of the women that actually did break gender barriers state how they got this sort of mail and worse, and mainly they sucked it up and kept the fight going. They did not play the victim card.
All those biographies of people of color that actually did break color barriers state how they got this sort of mail and worse, and mainly they sucked it up and kept the fight going. They did not play the victim card.
I thought Marcotte was a self-actualized rational agent adult that fights for the equality of men and women? Why is she forced, yet again, to play the victim card?
Oh yeah, to distract us from noting her stupid behavior and to allow her to escape responsibility for that stupid behavior.
Basically Marcotte is hiding behind her skirt.
So the new theory is Catholics become Catholics because it is the religion that best fits their misogyny? I would have thought Islam or Mormonism was a better fit. But then again, like you, I am no theologian.
Basically Marcotte is hiding behind her skirt.
Gimmee a fucking break. How did we know that "women that actually did break gender barriers state how they got this sort of mail and worse"? Umm, because they told us so. How did we know that "people of color that actually did break color barriers state how they got this sort of mail and worse"? Umm, because they told us so. And how did Marcotte "[hide] behind her skirt"? By telling us what was going on.
Sure they told us so, but not with a "poor poor pitiful me" attitude. That's Malkin's and Marcotte's innovation to distract from their actual behavior by pointing out how bad the other side is.
You wouldn't accept that behavior from your schoolkids, why do you accept it from Amanda and Michelle?
I think it's pretty hard to read that post without getting the feeling that Marcotte is setting herself up as the victim of patriarchal forces that couldn't tolerate her
Without wanting to be too much of a reality check... Amanda is the victim of patriarchal forces that can't tolerate her. Obviously so. Are you really asserting that she isn't, that her current problems come from some other source? That Malkin gets the same sort of mail supports this thesis, rather than argues against it. There are progressive patriarchal assholes, too.
The only people I find more infuriating in regards to this stupid, stupid affair than the ones who essentially say: "Well, look, I don't condone this kind of violent correspondence, but Marcotte's getting what she had coming" are the ones that have instead selected the pose: "Why is Marcotte whining?" or "Marcotte is a coward for resigning, she's just letting herself be pushed around by one or more powerful men, what a feminist" or "Marcotte is no Rosa Parks."
Nor is she claiming to be. Nor is she setting herself up as such, nor, I think, can you even plausibly read her as doing so unless you're predisposed to find something blame-worthy in her writing/actions.
Look. I never ever do the whiny "I wrote something germane and no one responded!" thing, but, upthread, I wrote something that remains perfectly relevant as a response to this kind of comment. Other people, in this thread and probably pretty much everywhere else in the left blogosphere, have written similar comments. Marcotte isn't whining for sympathy because big bad mean men (and women) have written nasty comments. She - like Malkin - have been getting nasty, obscene, violent (and sexually violent) emails for years now. The point - the reason for posting them (and as I said in my prior [sorry!] comment, the banality of this point doesn't deflate its truth) - is to highlight the nature of these comments relative to the ostensible reason she's receiving them. The post title, after all, is "People who claim to love Jesus write me". The point is to bolster her initial contention NOT that Christians are by definition misogynistic, but that MANY (especially many people of the sort liable to get riled up by Bill Donohue) do in fact wrap misogynistic attitudes and intentions in religious trappings. The real point of that "inflammatory" quote from however long ago now is that people use Christianity as a justification for what Marcotte perceives as misogyny, and in fact that same quote explicitly points out her opinion that Christianity is kind of irrelevant to said misogyny: without it, misogynists would just find a different justification. In our society, Christianity was the convenient and adaptable tool to hand.
If you read "poor pitiful me" in Marcotte's comments, you're just reading what you want to. If you think she said "Catholics become Catholics because it is the religion that best fits their misogyny," you're just reading what you want to.
I actually think it is reasonable for all three women and anyone that receives a similar email to post it. The answer to free speech is more free speech.
I just don't buy Marcotte or Malkin's victim routine or understand Matt's point.
anon-- Then please allow me to say, in a non-gender-specific way, that you're a complete and utter tool.
Marcotte isn't hiding behind her damned skirt. Nor is she pleading for special treatment. She's posting the hate mail she received to show that the campaign against her had absolutely nothing to do with a desire to keep the political sphere free from bigotry and naughty words.
What's interesting, of course, is that so many of her detractors use sexist cliches in the course of supposedly criticizing her for her crude mockery of Catholics.
Way to maintain the trend, buddy.
To address Quarterican's comment.
All dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs.
What we know is that on the internet there are lots of people that write really offensive, sexually threatening emails. They write that to women. They write that to men.
Some portion of those write that because they are violent.
Some write them because they are not violated in meatspace but frustrated, and this is their ugly free speech outlet.
Some write that because they hate atheists.
Some write that because they hate christianists.
Some because they hate Republicans.
Some because they hate Democrats.
Some because they hate men.
Some hate women.
Some hate gays.
Some hate straights.
What I don't know is how many wrote to Amanda because they hate women.
It seems you believe it's 100%.
I dunno. Maybe it is. All I know is there are a lot of jerks on the internet.
While I ain't Christian, I don't think the Christians are saying they are perfect. Is Amanda's point some sort of NewsFlash?
What's interesting, of course, is that so many of her detractors use sexist cliches in the course of supposedly criticizing her for her crude mockery of Catholics.
When Amanda uses hate speech to describe Catholics and Men, and people call her on it, she just says she was being humorous and ironical.
You should get a better humor detector.
She's posting the hate mail she received to show that the campaign against her had absolutely nothing to do with a desire to keep the political sphere free from bigotry and naughty words.
Again, this is not a NewsFlash. We have all known that since it started. In fact, this is exactly the reason so many of us were dumbfounded that Edwards extended the position to her, and dumbfounded that she was ignorant enough to accept the position. This is exactly why she may be a good writer and a good activist, but a terrible fit for a presidential campaign.
But now she's saying, they are misogynists, they are misogynists. And that is just a distraction from her own responsibility in this affair.
Since you have resorted to calling me names, I accept your concession that you have nothing more to say.
"Without wanting to be too much of a reality check... Amanda is the victim of patriarchal forces that can't tolerate her"
This seems to be increasingly tangental to the blogger affair, which was tangental itself, but what I wrote about patriarchal forces was meant to critically point out that Marcotte sees this whole thing in terms of gender (as she sees most things).
In terms of the hate mail she's gotten, gender obviously plays a large role, but I don't think it's obvious that the initial outcry depended on her womanhood. Her comments on their own were enough to spark controversy, and I don't much buy into "they took her down because she was an independant voice for feminism" idea that some do. Sure, the specifics of harassment she's suffered turned on gender, but the origin of this entire falderall was her writing and subsequent poor decision-making, not her gender.
Marcotte is hiding behind her skirt.
I'd say anon here has pretty well vindicated dropping by's theory about why so few women comment here...
I'd say anon here has pretty well vindicated dropping by's theory about why so few women comment here...
There was a particularly heated argument on abortion on this site a few weeks ago. I noted the lack of female commenters in a comment about my abortion history. In response, I got one (1)insult was otherwise ignored - except by the only other female commenter, who basically echoed me.
This is not a female-friendly site.
I note your outrage and raise you your defense that Pandagon is a male friendly site.
But my basic takeaway is there is probably no way to raise the question if Marcotte isn't being a hypocrite without you folks saying that doing so makes this a female-unfriendly site.
My statement that Amanda is hiding behind her skirt doesn't say all women hide behind their skirts. It's on the order of accusing one man in particular of being a sexist. Is that really what keeps women away from this site? Aren't you being awfully sexist in return? Awfully condescending and patronizing? Don't you think that women can stand up to *that* level of heat?
What you are doing is hiding behind your name calling.
You want to see women of all types debate with men on an equal basis and get respect?
The site you want is not Pandagon nor Yglesias. You are looking for FARK.com -- lots of women participating there of all shapes, sizes, colors, religions, sexualities. They seem to hold there own.
Why are you so afraid for women that you would think that one comment that one women is a hypocrite mentioned in an ironic fashion would keep women away.
Truly, your own inability to debate is what is showing.
You'll have to do better than that.
anon -
I'll grant you your point (not everyone writing hateful emails to Marcotte is, necessarily, a mmisogynist). OTOH, they're pretty much all misogynistic in content, which is kind of the point.
I don't consider myself a racist (in the classic, pejorative sense). I'm sure that at some point(s?) in my life I've made statements that can pretty much only be construed as racist. The proper response for me isn't: "Well, I'm not a racist," or "how do you know I'm a racist?" but rather: "Oh, wow, I see how that's racist, I should never have said such a thing, I apologize abjectly, I hope you believe I'm not a racist but the language of racism is clearly so pervasive in our culture that I thought it reasonable or appropriate to say [X]," etc., etc. Plausible that I could say something racist and yet not actually be a racist. However, let's imagine that Matt said something which I took to be racist, like...
"The reason the NBA is dominated by black people is because blacks have evolved to a state of physical ability which whites haven't, as compensation for blacks' concurrent deficit in the evolution of mental capacities."
Now, I consider that statement as such to be racist. And for the record, I don't think this statement *remotely* analogizes with anything Marcotte's ever written in terms of its egregiousness. But for the sake of example: Now let's say that I respond by emailing Matt something along the lines of:
"I can't believe what a fucking racist you are. This is pathetic - it's horrible how acceptable it still is for someone with some supposed credibility as a public figure to hold and what's more spout such filth. You'd better watch your back, you fucking JewSpic."
Given the context which caused me to email that, there's something notable about my approach, no?
JewSpic
I believe that's actually hyphenated.
It's not hyphenated, but it should appear in Arial, blue, with the last letter in red.
Given the context which caused me to email that, there's something notable about my approach, no?
I can only say perhaps. You're in the territory of "fighting words." When you use a fighting word, it may be because you honestly truly believe what you are saying with those words. But it could be that you know you will get a reaction, and what you want to do is provoke that reaction.
I have written plenty of "go fuck yourself" posts at various rethuglican blogs. Why? Because arguing the position at that time is pointless, or would take too long, or I'm just tired. So I post "go fuck yourself" It's a fighting word. It's a reaction.
When you call Matt a JewSpic it could be that you are bigoted. It could be you only want to see him seethe. It could be that you are trying to use irony, as in, "I can play that game too."
Melissa wrote something on the order of "what part of keep your hands off our bodies and bedrooms." I 100,000% agree with Melissa. But she wrote it to some true believers that probably honestly took offense at that (when it was pointed out by a fucktard instigator.) Some wrote to Melissa in threatening sexual ways because that is who they are. And some probably did have the presence of mind to write to her in those ways not because they would actually do that, but because they knew that arguing with her in that venue was pointless and they just wanted her to squirm.
Melissa, Michelle, and AManda are free to publish those emails. But I am not going to take their word for it that everyone that wrote those emails is a misogynist or a godbag or a traitorous american hating liberal.
I think Occam's razor would end it as "lots of assholes all over the internet."
I think anon's inability to distinguish between Amanda and Melissa is somehow significant.
Presuming the same individual wrote all the posts, I think the shift in what anon is arguing about is somehow significant.
I would say it is my ability to distinguish between the two, and your inability to do that.
"On November 21, 2006, Melissa McEwan said on AlterNet that ‘some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders—including the Pope—regularly speak out against gay tolerance.’ On November 1, 2006, on her blogspot Shakespeare’s Sister, she referred to President Bush’s ‘wingnut Christofascist base’ when lashing out against religious conservatives. On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, ‘What don’t you lousy motherf---ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?’"
lemuel, you have embarrassed yourself several times in this thread. You truly have no idea what you are talking about, and you are just wildly thrashing around calling other people names.
We all make mistakes. Must you continue?
I don't see how Bernard's email can fairly be characterized as hate mail. Bernard admires Marcotte's "trash talk", and stating he desires fellatio from her reflects a healthy openess about human sexuality.
Eight responses:
1) Nortcliff said: "Meanwhile, Frank Gaffney calls for the execution of Congressmen for Treason yet no-one campaigns for him to be kicked off Fox."
Yea but ya see FoxNews is a group of shameless, intellectually dishonest political hacks, not the John Edwards campaign for president. That the right-wing (including FoxNews, and the guy John McCain hired, and so much more) is cynical and shameless is a foregone conclusion. One of the main reasons I'm a Democrat is because of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc. If the Democratic Party becomes infused with left-wing versions of these hacks, (and people accept it because they think it will bring some measure of short-term success) then I won't be a Democrat anymore. There were good reasons to say that Amanda Marcotte shouldn't be in a communications position for John Edwards, regardless of Bill Donahue's involvement. Melissa McEwan, on the other hand, hasn't to my knowledge said anything remotely like what Marcotte says, yet Donahue still wants her gone. He can jump in a lake at this point, as far as I'm concerned.
This reminds me a little of when the Bush Administration said that even though they may torture (or may not, wink, wink) they're not as bad as the terrorist groups that hold our soldiers captive. See that was stupid. That we're better than the likes of Bin Laden and the Bathists is a foregone conclusion. We ought to be holding ourselves to our own standards, or better yet, universal standards of right and wrong. When I hear people defending Marcotte by pointing out how bad the right is, I think its very similar to the Bush crowd comparing themselves to the likes of Bin Laden, instead of holding themselves to something higher than mere relativity.
2) Nortcliff also asked "So should Malkin resign for venting her spleen also? She writes some very pretty invective as well."
Does Malkin work for a political campaign? If so, yes she should be fired.
3) Steve asked,
"Doesn't it say something bad about men, considering you never see women threatening rape?"
Umm, well I don't see why it has to say something bad about men in general. Sure it says something bad about the particular men that are sending these terrible messages, but I imagine that people who send these types of messages represent a very small percentage of the population. If that's true, then why should men who don't send these types of messages be clumped in with those who do?
4) Kimmett said: "...the Catholic faith apparently produces people who respond to criticism of their religion with threats of sexual violence, and a very large number of them."
OK, lets leave aside the wild claim that even a seemingly large number of self-described Catholics emailing Amanda Marcotte represents some significant chunk of the millions of Catholics in America, or around the world. OK? Lets leave that wild claim behind and focus on the claim that Catholicism produces people who respond to criticism of their religion with threats of sexual violence. If I went to Pandagon and posted some of the things I post over here and got jumped by Marcotte's posters and "educated" on the history of white male patriarchy, oppression caused by patriarchal Judeo-Christian religion, and capitalist greed, would I be correct in assuming that feminism is what produces people who can't argue outside of repeating matras? Or if I went to the ghetto and got robbed, would I be correct in saying that black culture is what produces violent crime?
I imagine your answer is no, and that's fine with me, because I imagine that its intellectually lazy to attribute complex social phenomena simply to black culture or political views. of course, you apparently think that doing this with Catholicism is OK, and that's where we disagree. You may say that your comment was innocent, that you didn't mean to imply cause and effect when you brought up Catholicism, in which case your statement would have been meaningless.
5) OK we all think that what these idiots said to Amanda Marcotte was insane and unacceptable right? And we all seem to agree that it happens across the political spectrum but especially to women. OK, so now where does that leave us? It seems to show that when you look at groups of women and when you look at groups of men, men have a greater tendency to lob sexual threats at women. But what does this say about the men who wouldn't do these things? Answer: it says nothing about men who don't do these thing...nothing.
I know this seems an offal lot like my first point, but what I'm trying to say here is that if all of a sudden a female blogger came along and said, "wow, look at all these terrible emails!" I would be right there with her in condemning them. And while I do condemn them now, in the context of what's been going on over the last week or so, it seems like more interference is being run.
Obviously Amanda Marcotte is nothing like these psychos who are being so disgusting in their emails. But then again, Rush Limbaugh isn't as bad as Idi Amin is he? If Idi Amin emailed Rush Limbaugh and talked about raping him or killing him or what not, we would say that Idi Amin is a psycho right? But that wouldn't get Rush off the hook. Rush may have rightly pointed out that Amin was a rabid dictator, and Rush may have even correctly pointed out the corruption of the Ugandan government at that time, but if Rush had also gone a little haywire in his critiques and mocked sacred African beliefs in general, and said things that are insulting to African people in general, (which sounds like something Rush would do), then we would say "Rush was wrong" regardless of how crazy some the emails Rush received were.
If Rush continuously held up the worst of the vitriol that he received, to the detriment of responding to more principled critics, then that would be a way of avoiding the more substantive detractors, and creating the impression that the type of people who oppose him are raving lunatics. This is essentially what is happening with Marcotte and her supporters.
6) Misogyny, misogyny, misogyny. OK it obviously exists. And it may be a good explanation for why Melissa McEwan got dragged into this. I'm sure many of Marcotte's critics are motivated by it as well. The point is that there are some who who have better arguments. Yet Marcotte and her posse will only focus on the misogyny and if you challenge them you're likely to get lumped in that category too.
There are some fundamental disagreements at the bottom of this issue. Why some feel that mocking the Virgin Birth is an appropriate way to respond to fringe Catholics and some don't is a serious disagreement. Why some think that the GOP's pandering translates into saying that Nascar has become a symbol of white supremacy and some don't is revealing of something fairly deep. Why some people believe that men who are accused of rape almost definitely held someone down and "fucked her against her will" and others believe that saying that hastily would be very wrong, well this represents two fundamentally differing views. That some people think you can say virtually whatever you want in blogs and others think that blogging is just like speaking, well these are different views too.
Now it may be that my side will lose if we started in on adjudicating between these world views, but we ought to have at least had the conversation. But no, that's not what Amanda Marcotte wants, and that's not what her supporters want either (based on their focus on tangential issues).
7) Some want to say that anyone offended by Marcotte has a persecution complex or is humorless or something. But ya see, Marcotte is not an equal opportunity offender the way the Daily Show is (and John Stewart wouldn't pretend to be an actual political operative). No, on the one hand she finds one of the Man Law commercials "very offensive" but on the other hand she is utterly lacking in contrition on saying that the Lord filled Mary with his "hot, white, sticky, Holy Spirit." I know she issued some half-ass apology, but she also said it was satirical and has said much more that reflects a lack of contrition about these comments. Well it doesn't seem like the satirical nature of the Man Law commercial mitigated the offensiveness of its message, yet she imagines that she can shit all over a doctrine millions of people (many of whom are not right-wing nutjobs) hold as sacred and she gets to explain it away as satire. No, Amanda, this is not Al Franken honing in on the jackass Bill O'Reilly and firing away in a hilarious manner. No, its you going off on a shotting rampage, claiming that half the people you hit aren't your actual target and asking why they should get bent out of shape about it.
8) Finally, in a way, these terrible emails, are almost like a gift to Marcotte's side. When the whole episode began, someone posted on some blog insulted Amanda Marcotte's looks (she looks fine to me). Now all these sexually inappropriate emails are surfacing. All these emails only serve to confirm the world view that Marcotte and her followers have bought into. Don't get me wrong, I agree with much (not all) of it, but they seem to believe it explains everything. It also gives them something to focus on other than substantive critiques. That crazies like Donahue are the media's choice (rather than some of the Democratic, and religious Law Professors who objected to the hire) to represent the anti-Marcotte hiring movement also skews the issue in a direction it shouldn't have gone.
Looking back at Bill Clinton's Sista Soljah moment, I think how people think of that reveals allot. Those who think Clinton was justified (whether or not his motives were purely political) and those who believe he was not justified, represent substantially different views. How different, and whether there can be any reconciliation, we won't know if the conversation never takes place. This is the type of debate we could have had, even though crazies like Donahue were involved.
Personally, I would like everyone in the 30% of Americans who believe George W. Bush is doing a good job (or is justified in his actions) to turn red, and everyone who thinks Clinton was wrong in his Sista Soljah (or that Amansa Marcotte is an appropriate hire for a PR position in a Democratic Pres. campaign) moment was wrong to turn blue. Then we should start a new party with the people who didn't turn red or blue.
I would like reconciliation with those who turn blue (as I've written off such reconciliation with the right) but I think after this whole episode, I'll have to write off reconciliation with certain segments of the left as well.
Correction:
I see now that Melissa McEwan too has resigned. I guess I'm a day late on that one, which is a long time on the blogosphere.
Anyway, I didn't have a problem with McEwan, so its too bad that she felt she had to leave.
I do find her recent comment odd:
"There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats."
This seems silly. So claiming victory means that you accept responsibility for the vitriol and veiled threats in her inbox? So you can't claim victory by asserting that you don't believe her explanation? Or you can't claim victory in ignorance of her explanation of why she resigned? No, if you claim victory, you are tacitly accepting responsibility for these vicious things?
Wow, I now hate the blogosphere...
Hey anon: Fuck you.
Don't take the bait, Lemuel. The troll has made precisely zero useful contributions to this thread.
When it was pointed out that the people who sent hate mail to Amanda Marcotte were not actually sensitive Catholics wounded by hurtful comments, but were actually hateful bigots fighting a culture war, anon responded by saying "Again, this is not a NewsFlash."
That really tells you all you need to know.
Pretty much everyone on this thread agrees that Amanda Marcotte went too far on occasion and wasn't really an ideal choice to work on a mainstream political campaign. We also all seem to agree that William Donohue and his followers are hateful swine.
The rest is just a matter of certain people choosing to indulge in a few anonymous potshots at feminist bloggers, because they apparently consider this to be more important than standing up to sexist thugs who make rape and death threats.
Several of you have made some really good points here, but I think you're skimming over a much larger issue. When it is pointed out, as it is every so often, that there is a dearth of female voices in the blogosphere (with the notable exceptions mentioned here, of course), there seems to be a sense of puzzlement amongst the male bloggers and commenters. There is hand-wringing and head-shaking and postulation, and all of it misses something very basic: females can never take their own physical safety for granted in the same way that males can. Not ever. This is not to say that no male ever gets physically assaulted by another human being (or several), nor is it to say that women are constantly in dread fear of being assaulted; it is to say that most males are not on guard against the possibility in the same way that many females learn to be from the time they learn about their physical vulnerabilities as a female. While it may be annoying and offensive as a male to get e-mails or comments that suggest that you deserve anal rape or (horrors!) call you a derogatory term for female anatomy, it is just that: offensive and annoying. You don't suddenly feel that you need to stay inside your house, or start frantically searching the internet to make sure there is no way that people could find your home address. It's just not the same.
If you want to know why there aren't as many publicly female voices on the internet, this is at least part of the reason. So implying, as anon has, that Amanda and others like her are "hiding" in any way, metaphorically or otherwise, is incredibly oblivious and (unintentionally, I hope) offensive. Most males, even those who would proudly call themselves feminists, do not know what it's like to be constantly aware of one's physical vulnerability, of the fact that biology has made one an easy target for someone with an inferiority complex to assert his "power" over through physical force. Amanda made light of some of the threats, perhaps because of their ridiculousness, and perhaps because they illustrate so nicely the hypocrisy of some of her critics, but as a woman I read those comments and felt fear in the pit of my stomach, not just for her but for any woman who speaks out and offends someone, intentionally or unintentionally. All it would take is for one of those many e-mailers to decide that she needs to be "taught a lesson." Misogyny is not an abstract philosophical concept for its targets. However funny Amanda and others may make it seem sometimes, it is a very real threat.
Question: how many of the male commenters here have their full name listed in the phone book? (Or, how many aren’t sure and have never thought about it?) How many post their full names when they comment on blogs? Do you know where your home address is available publicly? These are not things that women take for granted.
So, as you theorize and interpret and pontificate on What It All Means, please consider the fact that those of you with a Y-chromosome have the good fortune to be able to look at these things abstractly. Some of us do not. Which is not to say that we’re all cowering in a corner somewhere; I worry that some of my fellow female readers will be appalled at the weakness this post seems to convey. However, as much as we may hate to admit it, we cannot wish away the fact that this is something we have to worry about. This may be part of what Melissa meant when she said not to claim victory in her resignation. None of us should be glad that anonymous, hateful e-mailers with appalling grammar have to be taken seriously as a possible physical threat. Freedom of speech should not have to be sacrificed for physical safety, but that's at least part of what went on this week.
The argument here seems to be:
1. Those who objected to Ms. Marcotte's posts and involvement in the campaign claimed to be motivated by religious sensitivity.
2. Ms. Marcotte received threatening e-mails that are incompatible with Christian teachings.
Therefore -- the objections to Ms. Marcotte's writings were disingenuous and undeserving of respect.
---------
It's surprising that it even has to be pointed out why this is a ridiculous argument. Most who took offense to Ms. Marcotte's writings did not write her threatening e-mails.
One of the themes of the supporters of Ms. Marcotte is that Bill Donohue does not speak for them. Well, allow me to say that Mr. Bernard does not speak for me, and does not speak for most who were offended by Ms. Marcotte's statements.
That I happen to agree with Mr. Donohue and Mr. Bernard that Ms. Marcotte's comments are offensive does not implicate me in their tactics, any more than my agreement with Nazis that trains ought to run on time implicates me in the Blitzkrieg.
------
That Ms. Marcotte apparently thinks this is a winning argument should do more to disqualify her from working on a campaign than her inability to make a point without offending.
MJ,
I can't disagree with anything you've said in terms of what its like to be a woman...obviously I don't understand what that's like. Its just that I have felt since this whole episode began that tangential issues were being focused on at the expense of substantive arguments. This seems like more of that. It doesn't seem like it would take very much effort to bracket arguments in terms of their level of relevance, hatefulness, quality, etc.
But that's not what's happening. The reason Melissa McEwan's comment about placing tacit responsibility on the shoulders of anyone who claims victory for her resignation rubbed me the wrong way, is that it seems to fit too neatly in what seems to be an almost conscious decision to conflate substantive arguments with ridiculous ones. Though I thought that Melissa McEwan's words were (the ones the media quoted) were not all that bad, just because someone claims victory, and even if they are a right-wing dipshit, that doesn't necessarily make them someone who sends sexually insulting emails. Really you have to admit that right? It just seems like all these crazy people give Marcotte and now McEwan the right to clump anyone who disagrees with them into a ridiculous category. They should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Meaning, they could have been dealing with substantive arguments put forward by seemingly reasonable people all this time, but because they've been making a caricature of all of their critics, this seems to be more fo the same. Virtually no one agrees with sentiments in these terrible emails.
I was in on this argument before all these horrible emails. I was in on this argument from the time I read it on Hit & Run, which was before I knew Bill Donahue was involved. And since I've been critical of Amanda Marcotte, I've had a little bit of experience with being clumped into categories like troll or humorless Klucker, or wingnut or what have you, even though none of my critiques were anywhere close to the inexcusable things people have said to these ladies over email. Bringing out these emails right now, without bracketing them off into a special category of vileness, seems to actually gloss over more substantive issues.
So I guess I just have to ask: If we understood what it was like to be a women, how would that change the way we view Amanda Marcotte's handling of this episode? Seems like women would have a wide range of views on this matter. It seems like maybe the thesis of many of these posts was that bringing thse emails out was a way to ignore other issues, and your antithesis was that the content of those emails were bad enough to warrant publication, in other words, its important enough.
OK so the emails are important enough to release, but when you look at the whole context of the way things have occurred over the last several days, it seems like these kinds of issues are being focused on at the expense of other things. If its true that Amanda Marcotte has a tendency to point to ridiculous arguments made against her rather than meet difficult ones head on, then can't you see how this would seem like more of the same?
So how's this for a proposed sythesis:
OK, release the emails, but don't pretend (or imply) that the sum total of critiques leveled against you are from Bill Donahue and sexist thugs, and don't pretend that all the criticism you've received is all of that same lowly quality.
This all reminds me of the world's greatest light-bulb joke:
Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That's not funny!
Kimmit said :Amanda's point is that she's getting violent -- especially sexually violent -- emails in bulk from these supposed defenders of the Catholic faith. That is, that the Catholic faith apparently produces people who respond to criticism of their religion with threats of sexual violence, and a very large number of them. Her contention is that this is support for her views regarding the patriarchy, and she's absolutely right.
Walt added: Supposed Catholic men filled with their own righteousness because Marcotte said something bad about the Virgin Mary are using rape-filled invective, which proves that everything they said about being motivated by Catholicism was 100% bullshit. They're motivated by their hatred of women.
I said: So the new theory is Catholics become Catholics because it is the religion that best fits their misogyny?
Quarterican replied: If you think she said "Catholics become Catholics because it is the religion that best fits their misogyny," you're just reading what you want to.
Or perhaps I was just reading was was already written.
Listen everyone, Lemuel threatens to anally rape me. Is it because Lemuel is a feminist? Do all feminists want to anally rape people they disagree with?
MJ,
You do not seem to know what the phrase "hiding behind her skirt" actually means....
And yes, you are right, guys don't know what it is like to live in fear. In the guy world, all guys high five each other all the time while trying to leer at women and scare them naked.
That's why there is so much love expressed in our city streets and why there are all night guy parties across the city each night.
It's why I post as anon and have unlisted phone numbers and protect my privacy on the intart00bs.
And Amanda is a brave brave grrlwarrior for speaking truth to power and purposefully using fighting words when discussing certain Catholic behavior and discussing all fathers that fight for shared custody of their children.
MJ, once you've played the "you have no idea, but women are in fear for their lives" card, the argument is over. It makes anything a woman does seem brave, and it takes away any ability for a non-woman to argue their behavior was stupid.
But, if women are in such fear for their lives as you suggest, then wtf, maybe they should stay home and safe in the kitchen where they can be protected by a man.
Anon -- contructive criticism -- I think your posts would be more effective if you could resist the urge to end them with little digs -- "hiding behind her skirt", "stay home and saf in the ktichen.."
I know you're being ironic, but all it does is give those who would like to dismiss you as miogynist an excuse to do so.
I hear what you are saying.... And you are probably correct.
I don't think either were digs per se. The first was an ironical accusation of hypocrisy. The second a logical extension of an argument.
Anyway, my experience is that people that dismiss others as misogynistic go looking for excuses and will make them up as they need. Witness Lemuel's behavior here. It's part of a victim card as trump card method of arguing to shut down a deba
Maybe Amanda and Michelle Malkin could form a support group.
Posted by Al | February 14, 2007 10:30 AM