Winnipeg Free Press story.
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Tuesday, August 27th, 2002
Baring their yellowed fangs
Tuesday, August 27th, 2002
Lindor Reynolds
In the past week I have been called a Nazi, a faggot, a nigger, criticized for lacking gonads of appropriate size, for being "foreign" and for the unforgivable sin of appearing to be fat.
The vitriolic response to an anti-smoking column on this page (Anti-tobacco lobby still blows smoke, Aug. 20) was expected. What was fascinating was not the vilification by the hacking minority but the way they expressed their outrage.
To be perfectly clear: I support the right of all readers to disagree with what I write and to fully express their displeasure. What surprised me in the 100 or more responses to last week's column (one paragraph of which was distributed over the Internet by an American pro-smoking lobby) were the lengths to which respondents would go to find a soft spot in which to insert the filleting knife.
First, here's the paragraph, taken from a column dealing with the condemnation of Canada's anti-smoking public education program by a coalition of health groups:
"Making smoking illegal would be a better solution, but apparently the rights of too many yellow-toothed smokers would be stomped to ensure the rest of us have clean air," I wrote feverishly.
"The ghettoization of smokers, reducing them to pack animals huddled together in parking garages and in back alleys, has been wonderful to watch but it hasn't gone far enough. It seems ardent smokers, the sort who claim they enjoy every cigarette (yes, even the ones stolen outside in minus 40 weather) are too hopelessly addicted or willfully stupid to quit."
Strong words? I suppose, but it was the news that cigarette smoke kills 45,000 people a year ("Name one," snapped an e-mail) that motivated me.
"The promotion and incitement to treat other human beings in a way reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany is outrageous," wrote Audrey Silk of Brooklyn, N.Y. "I demand a public apology. Reynolds should be fired."
Silk was one of a dozen people from the pro-smoking lobby who accused me of wanting to destroy Jewish businesses and slap yellow stars on people I don't like. It was a dramatic yet despicable charge. I wrote many of them back, polite notes that explained I found it repugnant that a person who chooses to engage in an activity known to harm others would dare compare herself to a Jew in Nazi Germany.
Robert Foster wrote: "Perhaps you should think twice before publishing such hate-filled rhetoric. Just a suggestion, you know ... at least until I can locate an attorney hungry enough to take the case."
"Coming from someone so badly in need of a root touch-up and with an obvious life-long weight problem," wrote Rose Kouroyen, "have you taught them (my supposed children) to demonize overweight people also?"
Anonymous made some presumptions based on my first name.
"Why don't you go back to your own country," that e-mail began, with wonderful solipsism. "We don't need foreign faggots telling us what Americans should do."
From another person: "Your nigger thoughts don't mean anything. What should I care about you and your stupid opinion?"
Wrote another: "I'm a white suburban soccer mom, a world you'll never understand or be a part of."
And from an anonymous correspondent: "Mr. Reynolds, if you had any balls you'd put your phone number in the paper. You need a good smack."
And so it came to this. It is impossible to write a coherent argument for smoking in 2002 so they wrote instead of what they hoped were my vulnerabilities. Was I black? Gay? Concerned about my weight? Terrified of a physical fight? Afraid of a lawsuit? An unrepentant dyer of hair? Then those were the points they would attack.
What they chose -- what they believed would be hurtful -- revealed their prejudices as clearly as my original column revealed my prejudice against smoking. They labelled their new enemy with the rawest of their fears and stepped off from there. I went from being a newspaper columnist in a city they'd never visited to a composite of every person they secretly loathe.
I can't say it felt good to be the subject of their prejudice. It felt worse to fully understand how close to the surface some individuals keep their hatred and how little it takes to tear the thin skin that covers it. (She writes about herself in this paragraph).
Email her at:
lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca
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© 2002 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
So, out of 100 or more responses she got six that were a little hateful. I wouldn't think that this is too bad an average after some of the things that were put out in this column.