unwanted attention July 6, 2007
Blogging has been lighter the past few days after I became aware of the fact that some very unpleasant folks - an online network of racists - have decided to make my blog a target based on some perception they have that my work at my regular job has involved media cover-up of black-on-white hate crimes. This is not true, of course, but they seriously creep me out, and knowing they are reading this makes me nervous. Of course, that’s likely what they want - to make me nervous - so I’ll try to shake it off and move on. But for now, it’s making me less enthusiastic about writing about anything here other than the weather and what I watched on TV in the middle of the night.
Man, screw em. The only threatening thing about these losers is the fact that their moms and dads won’t let them go out after 11.
Online fascists are the lowest forms of scum.
“Hey, lets scare people on the internet!”
Jackholes.
These people are mentally ill and I feel sorry for them. Living every day filled with that kind of hatred and anger must be agonizing beyond anything I can imagine. I just thought about the prayer, “May the peace of the Lord fill your hearts and minds this day and forever.” I will say it for them.
Katie,
Sorry to hear this. Ignore them these few, small people. There are probably thousands and thousands who enjoy your blog and are helped by it…like me.
What a cowardly bunch — let all of us know if there’s anything we can do.
I am sorry that you have been the target of such nonsense. It won’t make you feel any better, but please know that the reason why I have turned the comments off of my own blog was because it was attacked…there is no better word to use…in those first awful weeks after my brother was killed. Apparently there are those out there who feel as though Andy “got what was coming to him because his sister was a traitor to the nation he was fighting for.” I am serious. There are those in this world who just are cruel for the sake of being cruel. It’s a large part of the reason why I have completely distanced myself from the online childfree community. Snark, I can handle. Hatred, I have no time for. And unfortunately, as the Internet so aptly demonstrates, some people have nothing but time for hatred, and they spread it around as much as they can.
They can read?
It’s one thing to be a coward, its another to show the world you’re one. Come out from behind the sheets boys. If your ideas are so damn fine, you ought to be proud enough to show your faces!
There.
They got wound up with me too last month over a blog posting I did on Leonard Pitts and his column on the Christian-Newsom case and how it was being used in the black-on-white hate crime cause. A couple of the sites posted my home address and phone; one even posted my photo.
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Katie-
So sorry that you have had this happen to you. To say these are low-lifes is overstating the obvious. I posted a blog last fall about security being required at Jewish temples in Asheville where we lived at the time and got a few nastygrams over that one too, but unlike you I had more anonymity. They are very scary in print but don’t let them affect your life.
Was my post the one that causes you to think that you are targeted by an on line group of racists? Were there posts you have deleted?
Cause I just asked why a physical description of three rapists/burglars on the loose (for over a week) was not provided by the local news media.
That seems odd. And the only explanation I can think of is that the folks at media are concerned that it will be used by white supremicists as the Chrisian Newsome story was used. Is there some other explanation?
Am I being racist for asking what folks in the news room are thinking? You say it isn’t true that your work invlolves “media cover-up of black-on-white hate crimes.” Fine. I believe you. I asked you because I thought you would know, and tell me the truth. Is it not true because that the suspects were white?
All I want to know is why not describe the suspects? When I first read the story posted on WBIRs web site it said that one of three suspects had been caught almost two weeks after an even were a home was burglarized and a woman was raped in front of her husband. The story was not very sensitive to the woman’s privacy as it was plain from the graphic where the woman lived and what her address was. The story was also fairly insensitive to the victim in the way it depicted the crime (although it was immediately corrected after an onslaught of criticism from readers that it was too graphic).
Nowhere did it describe the suspsects, who had been loose for over a week. Why not? They have since been caught so it is not as important. But if WBIR is making its reporting decisions so as to hide news from hate groups I’d like to know.
And I am glad that during those two weeks they didn’t commit any other horrible crimes.