Check Your Entitlement At My Virtual Door

It’s been a long and enlightening couple of days.

I ended my last blog with the statement that I would not be posting “pro rebel flag” comments, nor would I post anything outright racist (and I made it clear I deeply believe the two are connected). I did not rule the comments section with an iron fist. I posted a few comments pointing out perceived inconsistencies in my argument or comments from people who wanted to spin my arguments in new directions. I have not censored people who are grappling with nuanced views or asking productive questions. However, I thought I had made myself clear in my closing that I would not engage outright arguments. Maybe I should’ve led with that statement. I now suspect people who didn’t agree with me stopped reading long before they got to the postscript. I’m not surprised people turned away from an argument that challenged them. It’s human nature to do so. Lord knows I buried my head in the sand long enough on that issue. I understand the impulse to do so, which is why I should have probably anticipated the anger and violence with which people reacted to the post.

I should have, but I didn’t.

Over the last few days I’ve been called a MFing idiot, a n***er loving liberal, a lunatic, a tool of black oppression, a worthless dyke, ignorant, a liar, a bitch, and all of those things were in the first line of the comments because I generally stopped reading after that point. I can only imagine what else those page-long diatribes worked up to by the end. I have the mouth of a trucker on me, but I ended up red-faced with embarrassment for the commenters on more than one occasion and tearful with sadness at others. It’s not often I’ve been personally faced with the full force of racism in its virtual form, and I admit I was unprepared to handle it.

I have had to turn off the comments on that blog post, due to both the sheer volume of the comments as well as the vitriol contained in some of them. As I try to get back to work this week, I simply cannot keep up with them any more. I have a career, a family, summer travels to prepare for, and house under a series of construction projects. I do not have the time or the energy to read/sort through 25-50 angry comments every morning and then again every night. But even turning off the comments hasn’t worked, because now I am being harassed via email, and some people have gone so far as to contact my publisher threatening to boycott the entire company if they’re not allowed to post a comment on my personal blog.

I’m not ashamed to admit I am tired to the point of emotional exhaustion.

Let me be clear. I’m in no way claiming I’ve been oppressed. If anything, I’ve seen this experience as a reminder of my privilege. As an educated, white, middle-class woman, I’m not accustomed to being spoken to the way I have been over the last few days. This is a luxury many of my African American friends are not afforded. My heart breaks for them. I wish I could mitigate all the violence they face. I wish I could somehow act as a buffer. If there was some way for me to bear the brunt of the disrespect and anger they face on daily basis, I would put on my big girl pants, gird my loins, and take my verbal beatings, but that’s not how hate works. It’s not as if the people who hate me will run out of hate to hurl at other people. Hate feeds off of hate, ignorance breeds more ignorance, violence leads only to more violence. I cannot drive out any of those abhorrent virtues by submitting to them. The darkness spreads with each new expression. What I can do, however, is curb their expressions. I can stop providing that insidious negativity with an outlet.

That’s all I was trying to do with my little P.S. about not posting racist comments on my blog. I’m not surprised people tried to post them anyway. Why would someone who makes an argument that “Africans invented slavery” as their defense give any deference to my request for appropriate behavior? What I am surprised about is the number of people who’ve become angry (some even enraged) at my refusal to post their racist, ignorant, or mean-spirited comments. Several of them have written me multiple times, becoming more and more belligerent in the process going so far as to demand I give them their right to be heard at large.

If you’re one of those people, please stop. It isn’t going to happen, and here’s why: This is not an open forum or a town hall meeting. This is my blog. This is my online living room, and I will not allow you to talk to/about me, my family, or my friends here in any way that I would not allow you to talk to/about me, my family or my friends in my actual living room. If you came into my home and shouted at me to “Get my fucking facts straight,” I would ask you to leave. If you used the N-word or in any way suggested African Americans got what they deserved, I would show you the door. If you called young black men thugs and said they needed to be controlled, or suggested slavery/segregation worked well to that purpose, you’d be told never to return. And if you accompanied these messages with hints of violence, I would call the police so fast your head would spin.

Everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, and as I said in my original post, you’re free to share them in your own blog or on your own Facebook page, but you cannot use my name, my space, or my virtual home as a platform to spread hate. If your comment is something I would not allow you to say in my home, in front of my wife and son, or around my African American friends, it’s not something I’ll allow you to say here. And if you’re trying to engage me in an argument I wouldn’t engage in on the street or in my church, I will not engage it here.

You are not entitled to my approval.

You are not entitled to my space.

You are not entitled to force your views on me or any other human being.

Here’s the final verdict: If you continue to try to spew racism, or try to justify your racism, I will delete your first comment. If you continue to push, I will report you as a spammer. If that doesn’t work, I will report your posts as harassment.

It you don’t like my policies, if they make you angry, feel free to write you own blog about how liberals are silencing you. Post your outrage on your Facebook page, tweet it out to the world, share those posts every day for the rest of your life. THAT is free speech. THAT is the American way. I will stand by your right to blanket your own corner of the Internet with your opinions no matter how much I disagree with them. What I won’t stand is for you to continue to try to force those offensive opinions onto my blog.