March 07, 2003

Hate Mail Revisited A while

Hate Mail Revisited

A while back I noted with some puzzlement the fact that almost all of the hate mail I receive tends to feature slurs against homosexuals. I don't get it very often, but when I do get it, it's almost always along the lines of "you support the war? you must be some kind of sick homo." More elaborate and graphic than that of course, but that's the gist. I think that's pretty ironic, because the stereotypical "liberal" is supposed to look down on that sort of thing. I know I do.

Apparently, sfgate wack-ed writer Mark Morford gets the same kind of mail from "conservatives" in response to his anti-war columns. These letters are:

filled with flaming bile, with a rabid pro-military lust, homophobia like a calling card, aimed at me, at S.F, at progressives, at gays -- anyone, really, who is not in blind lockstep support of everything ShrubCo spins their way.

Given the caricature of "conservatives" that animates Morford's agonistic worldview, this is much less ironic. But substitute a few terms (e.g.,"anti-American" for "pro-military," "Chomsky-co" for "Shrubco") and that's a serviceable description of the mail I get, too.

Here are the conclusions I draw: there is a certain sort of disagreeable person who, regardless of ideological posture or self-identification, believes that the most satisfying or effective way to express anger and opprobrium is to slather on the derogatory homoerotic language and imagery; and these types make up the vast majority of those who are inclined to express anger and opprobrium by sending hate mail to columnists or bloggers. All ideological persuasions are represented in this Venn diagram of kook discourse, though it may be that some of the circles are larger than some of the others. The intersection is assuredly a pretty ugly one. But then, we already knew that. Morford, however, has his own diagram: take a sheet of paper and draw a single vertical line around an inch from the left-hand side, which you label "us.") I wonder if he would be surprised to learn that his diagram is wrong. I know I was.

Here's another quote:

I get this a lot, too, in response to columns about, say, alternative religion, or spirituality, or progressive politics, or sex, or open mindedness or anything that rubs conservatives the wrong way, which is, of course, just about anything

Now I, like Morford, am a San Francisco native and life-long Bay Area resident. So, like Morford, I dare say I probably haven't ever met more than a handful of actual conservatives in my life. I do a lot of reading, though, and I can number a fair few conservatives among my cyber friends. Maybe my sample is skewed by the fact that the libertarian impulse is so pronounced among the "conservative" bloggers I "know," but I'd say this characterization of "conservatives" is pretty inaccurate. And I'd wager that there are many who are not fag-baiting nuts (including liberals, gays, and other typical Bay Areans) who would find his anti-Americanism offensive and his culture-war salvos more than a little kooky. At any rate, Morford is kidding himself if he really thinks it's the "open-mindedness" of his columns that rubs people the wrong way.

On the other hand, if I were to judge solely on the basis of the hate mail I have received on the subject, I'd have to assume that antipathy towards homosexuals was an essential component of the anti-war position, that everyone who disagreed with me on the war had to be some kind of fag-bashing weirdo, and that this disagreement was of a piece with such base, anti-social, objectionable comportment, only to be expected of such horrid people, really. I'd be wrong about that of course.

I think Mark Morford should probably "read out" more often.

Posted by Dr. Frank at March 7, 2003 01:50 PM | TrackBack