tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7578125528475198742.post3240421384690921554..comments2023-05-11T03:06:59.054-07:00Comments on The Well Run Dry: Laser BigotryTH in SoChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00483293929968668475noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7578125528475198742.post-50901934148456746082011-01-09T19:39:32.629-08:002011-01-09T19:39:32.629-08:00Hi, it's good to hear from you again after suc...Hi, it's good to hear from you again after such a long absence. I hope that absence means you have been busy doing interesting and important things.<br /><br />Funny how you topic today intersects so well with what I wrote today: here is an excerpt (most of it, actually) of a letter I wrote to columnist Joel Connelly of the Seattle Times, who wrote a pretty good piece on the responsibility of the Right for the violence that took place in Arizona. <br /><br />"The scuttling of the the hard right to take cover behind pious words would be funny to watch if it weren't so calculated and disingenuous. They know as well as you and I do that their words are not innocuous. Every genocide of modern times has been preceded by a long period of ramping up of violent rhetoric towards the eventual victims. In Rwanda particularly, radio personalities and talking heads spent many many hours exhorting the public to murder. Not that I think the U.S. is on the brink of a domestic holocaust or anything, but the American people need to be reminded that before atrocities can take place, a climate of hatred and justification of violence must first be created. And the Right is working overtime to create such a climate. <br /><br />I especially fear the incredibly incendiary language used against undocumented immigrants and their children. Many on the Right have been constructing a culture of dehumanization against them, comparing them to livestock or to dogs (when talking about electrified fences and microchips), and attempting to strip Latino babies of their natural-born citizenship. I hate to admit it, but I can easily see a massive roundup and deportation campaign reminiscent of the Japanese internment camps of WWII. Concentration camps on the American landscape may seem farfetched, but not when you meditate on Sherrif Arapaio's circus in the desert and his staged forced marches of Mexican prisoners through the streets of Phoenix, where they are subject to the revilement and abuse of ordinary Americans. That such things can take place in this country without provoking massive outrage makes me both frightened and sad."<br /><br />You and I have a very limited pulpit, but I appreciate your using yours to speak out against hatred. Keep up the good work, brother, I have to believe it makes a difference of some kind, if only to the state of our own souls.<br /><br />By the way, are you hooked up with the bitch at Angryblackbitch.blogspot.com? She is, if you will forgive a white chick for saying so, a sincerely righteous sister. <br /><br />Bless you,<br />AimeeAimeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06358194304460170717noreply@blogger.com