Hate Mail of the Weak

A glance at this week's insecure racists projecting their hate at me and other people of color

How do you respond to horrid bigotry, especially when it’s in response to condemning documented racism? Let’s Address This in a new issue of “Hate Mail of the Weak.”

I periodically share this more personal side of my advocacy for human rights because it is important to me that you, my gracious supporters, see what I see. Apologies in advance for the vulgar language in the screen shots below.

How It Started

It started when I posted two notes about how systemic racism in the United States has always been extremely profitable, while Black lives simply haven’t mattered.

I followed up with another example of how white supremacy has always been lucrative in this country, at the expense of Black and brown lives. And how when I, as a non-Black person speak up for something as critical as reparations for Black Americans, white supremacists respond with similar vitriol.

Both posts gained popularity, ultimately gaining over 6800 and 16,000 likes, respectively. That drew the attention of racists, who unleashed grotesque bigotry in response.

The Racist Response

Last night, I received this from a racist who decided to use his email address, so I have no problem sharing that here. Content warning: Vile racism.

Remarkably, racists responded with the exact racism I warned they would respond with. Similar dehumanizing racism followed the post online. For example:

Next, racists attempted to gaslight the reality of white supremacy by claiming “Black supremacy” also exists. This is a deliberate strategy to confuse and sanitize the vileness of white supremacy terrorism.

Note, there’s no such thing as “Black supremacy” in terms of race, because as we know race is a social construct. The troll may have had a point about Black supremacy if he was talking about fashion, cooking, music, dance moves, or scholarship given the world’s oldest university was established by a Black African Muslim Queen named Fatimah Al-Fihri, but somehow I doubt that was his point. Anyway, and unsurprisingly, what followed was more sanitization of white supremacy by deflecting to so-called “illegal aliens.”

Here’s your reminder that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, have always lower crime rates than native-born U.S. citizens. This has been consistently documented over not just decades, but over centuries. A Northwestern University study looked at data going back to 1870 and found:

Using incarceration rates as a proxy for crime, a team of economists analyzed 150 years of U.S. Census data and found immigrants were consistently less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. They also found beginning in 1960, the incarceration gap widened such that immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the U.S.-born. “Our study shows that since 1870, it has never been the case that immigrants as a group have been more incarcerated than the U.S.-born,” Jácome said.

In other words, the more immigrants you have in your neighborhood, the statistically safer is your neighborhood.

The Bottom Line

I share these experiences because I want you, my readers, to see and understand the unfiltered reality in which so many immigrants, minorities, and Black and brown people experience on the daily. Accordingly, let me reemphasize my appreciation to each of you for supporting my work and advocacy. I want you to know that when you subscribe, whether for free or at $6/month, your support helps me continue to build a platform committed to justice as human rights. Your support matters, and I am immensely grateful to those who help me grow this platform.

Second, I emphasize again I want each of you to see how the most common response to condemning racism, is more racism. This is done to maintain the status quo of racism and demonize anyone working to change that status quo. This is why it is simply not enough to be not racist, but we must be actively anti-racist to counter this hate and vitriol. Thank you to those with the courage to lead accordingly.

Third and finally, all this means we must respond by speaking up loudly. We cannot sit silent, but must continue to speak out. As I’ve written before we do this when we tell our stories and share our stories. We do this by investing our time and resources to elevate people doing the work and building that more just and compassionate future. You have my promise to always speak up and uphold justice above all else, period. Let us continue to demand that more humane and just future for this generation and the next.

Are you in?