Because of a song


Oh look, it’s Jessica Ahlquist and Twitter all over again. A primary school principal in Brooklyn says no to a rebarbative-sounding song titled “God Bless the USA” for the kindergarten graduation.  Well I should think so! If you want god, go to church.

But of course she’s getting the foul name-calling and threatening on Twitter.

Hawkins scrapping of the patriotic song has resulted in nasty hate mail aimed at the principal that’s being investigated by the schools and N.Y.P.D.

One letter says, “You are a filthy, dirty, ugly subhuman gorilla,” another says, “Lets hope that AIDS will do what sickle cell anemia failed to do, exterminate your whole simian race.”

And there’s this one “Niggers and their Jew commie bosses are the scum of the earth.”

Nice. They’d be right at home at ERV. (They’re going nuts here these days, by the way. Hundreds of hits every day. Hi Justicar! Hi franc, hi gang. Sure you don’t want to call Greta Hawkins names on Twitter by way of a holiday?)

It’s good that religion makes people nicer.

 

Comments

  1. julian says

    How dare you get so worked up just a few trolls on twitter? Blogs like this draw attention away from real problems, like racism or bullying or the bigotry the overly religious treat the rest of us to.

    What’s that you say? Perfect example of that? Ah well, carry on then.

    The Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott weighed in on Hawkins decisions saying, “One of the things we’ve done over the last few years is empower our principals to make decisions as far as their schools are concerned.” He went on to say, “She made that decision and I support her in making that decision.” -from the new’s report

    A rare thing in New York. Usually school administrators cave under any kind of pressure. If nothing else I’m glad Ms. Hawkins has the district’s support.

    And, of course, that she’s willing to take a stand.

  2. Concentratedwater, OM says

    Hi Ophelia. So now, in addition to your recent mountain/molehill extrapolation as regards “threats”, you are claiming that ERV commenters are racist anti-semites.

    Could you provide a few samples of this behavior, as I don’t recall such comments.

    Thanks.

  3. Tristan says

    Nice. They’d be right at home at ERV.

    A new low in a feud that has been all lows. Congratulations.

  4. Optimus Primate says

    Not just racist and anti-semitic, Concentratedwater; she’s calling us genocidal. Nice.

    Yeah, us ERVites are the goons. Mmmhmm.

  5. julian says

    These are just internet trolls! Random tweets from nobodies!!!! You don’t know these peoples! How you call them genocidal! You don’t know they’re racist just from a few words! How do you know they’re not black or jewish!

  6. CT says

    nobodies!!!!

    words!!!words on the internet!!! they aren’t real!!! they mean nothing!!! just because we type words on the internet doesn’t mean the people the words !!! words aren’t real!!!111elebentytwelve!! philosophy!!! i win!!! +1

  7. CommanderTuvok says

    The “Slimepitters” (plus a few non-slimepitters)get blamed for those emails (accusations by Jason Thiebeau). Turns out not to be true. Then Ophelia implies that racists and anti-semites would be welcome at ERV. Also not true. The charge of anti-semitism is particulary noteworthy given that it is directed at Abbie. It’s more than creepy.

    The current civil war in Syria is also not the fault of ERV, however much Ophelia would like to lay the blame at them.

    PS – Josh Slocum, “go fuck yourself” is not an example of evidence.

  8. julian says

    Then Ophelia implies that racists and anti-semites would be welcome at ERV.

    How dare you imply these people are anti-semitic? What proof do you have except for a few trolling comments? Don’t you know people will troll you and flame you with the things that bug you most? OMG you’re such a bigot!

  9. GMM says

    @CommanderTuvok

    I think the mentality is exactly the same, but since your targets are just trivial stupid women, you don’t see the connection.

    As long as you keep your targets female, you’re totally safe when you dehumanize and wish horrible things will happen to them. Cause bitches ain’t shit.

  10. real horrorshow says

    Setár, self-appointed Elf-Sheriff of the Pharyngula Star Chamber says:
    June 22, 2012 at 11:32 pm
    -reads thread-

    -cleans glasses, reads thread again-

    Am I dreaming? Did Ophelia just troll the slimepit? And successfully at that?!

    Hmm, you know I think that to troll somewhere you do actually have to post there. Far safer to do it here in the bubble where dissenters can be deleted and banned.

    Also, how is it “successful” to associate a group of people with a load of abusive tweets without a shred of evidence that any connection exists (and in my case certainly does not)? A fine example of the standard of “freethinking” that goes on around here.

    Why is Ophelia so keen to associate any bit of random vileness with people who disagree with her anyway? It’s almost like the Slimepitters were Jews in Germany in 1936…

  11. David says

    “Why is Ophelia so keen to associate any bit of random vileness with people who disagree with her anyway?”
    perhaps its to count how many proxie police are monitoring her blog, or maybe its the random vileness displayed by those who disagree with her

  12. Bruce Gorton says

    Hawkins scrapping of the patriotic song has resulted in nasty hate mail aimed at the principal that’s being investigated by the schools and N.Y.P.D.

    The song is only patriotic in that “last resort of the scoundrel” sort of a way.

    It doesn’t call for improvement, it calls for people to be satisfied being dirt poor (first verse) and maintaining the status quo (note how it speaks of defending the USA, but not of expanding freedoms.)

  13. real horrorshow says

    David says:
    June 23, 2012 at 1:50 am
    “Why is Ophelia so keen to associate any bit of random vileness with people who disagree with her anyway?”
    perhaps its to count how many proxie police are monitoring her blog

    Ah, so you mean she’s doing it to keep up those “Hundreds of hits every day”? Certainly that’ll keep the advertisers happy. So long as her motives are clear.

    or maybe its the random vileness displayed by those who disagree with her

    Specific disagreement is not “random vileness”. Besides, since even disagreement gets you banned and your posts deleted Ophelia is quite safe here. Though I’m taken with the implication in your reply that if someone says something you don’t like, then it’s fine to associate them with something they haven’t done to someone who isn’t you. Ever onward in the pursuit of greater victimhood!

  14. Bruce Gorton says

    To the very butthurt ERVites:

    Isn’t it a bit rich for you to be complaining about how various Freethought Blogs ban you, on Freethought Blogs? I mean it kind of makes it clear how little substance your complaints have now doesn’t it?

    And given that each blogger has their own comments policy with which comments are allowed, and these are a fair few fairly large-ish name blogs when you get right down to it, shouldn’t you take it as a bit of a hint if you keep getting banned?

  15. real horrorshow says

    Bruce Gorton says:
    June 23, 2012 at 2:53 am
    To the very butthurt ERVites:

    Isn’t it a bit rich for you to be complaining about how various Freethought Blogs ban you, on Freethought Blogs? I mean it kind of makes it clear how little substance your complaints have now doesn’t it?

    And given that each blogger has their own comments policy with which comments are allowed, and these are a fair few fairly large-ish name blogs when you get right down to it, shouldn’t you take it as a bit of a hint if you keep getting banned?

    So I should wait until after I’m banned to complain about banning. Only I shouldn’t complain because anyone who gets banned is – by definition – guilty of something. In the same way that I – and everyone else – who posts in the Slimepit *TM* is guilty of saying “Niggers and their Jew commie bosses are the scum of the earth.” even though none of us did. Dazzling logic.

    Oh, and I can’t be offended, I have to be ‘butthurt’? I think someone’s prejudices are showing.

  16. Bruce Gorton says

    real horrorshow

    So I should wait until after I’m banned to complain about banning.

    Well, duh. Thus far it is a bit like complaining about getting robbed – before a robbery has taken place.

    You can complain about it on ERV’s place or set up your own blog if you feel that hard done by.

    As to Freethought Blogs banning you – if you are getting banned on multiple blogs with multiple different takes on moderation, then maybe it isn’t the blogs that are the problem.

    Each blog on this platform, so far as I understand it, self-moderates. If you are getting banned it isn’t Freethought Blogs banning you – it is each particular blog you are commenting banning you reasonably independently.

    That indicates that maybe, just maybe, it isn’t the blogs at fault here.

  17. James Kell says

    Well, duh. Thus far it is a bit like complaining about getting robbed – before a robbery has taken place.

    … or complaining about upskirt photos before they’ve been taken?

  18. julian says

    Specific disagreement is not “random vileness”.

    *snort*

    So who’s up for another round of “that whore cunt Watson deserves everything and anything she gets”?

    Seems the best way to pass the time.

    Maybe we can head over to Pharyngula and mock all the women there who’ve been raped.

  19. James Kell says

    Maybe we can head over to Pharyngula and mock all the women there who’ve been raped.

    Stop inventing crimes for your enemies. You’re doing free thought wrong.

  20. avh1 says

    James, no he isn’t. He’s disagreeing with you. That is not the same thing as ‘doing freethought wrong’.

  21. julian says

    Stop inventing crimes for your enemies. You’re doing free thought wrong.

    Who’s inventing? Back when E-gate started quiet a few of you said some callous and intentionally triggering things to them.

    But hey, just trolling, right?

  22. MyaR says

    Sorry to be laughing, Ophelia, but the above is kind of perfect in its demonstration of perfect fail in logic, understanding, and self-awareness.

    How dare you imply these people are anti-semitic? What proof do you have except for a few trolling comments? Don’t you know people will troll you and flame you with the things that bug you most? OMG you’re such a bigot!

    Still laughing. Well done.

  23. Bruce Gorton says

    @James Kell

    … or complaining about upskirt photos before they’ve been taken?

    I do not get the reference here – but yes.

    Complaining about someone threatening or planning to take such photos is, however, a different matter.

  24. Vall says

    “Hmm, you know I think that to troll somewhere you do actually have to post there.”

    It would seem your claim is false. Here you are. Similar to the posts complaining of banning. Maybe it’s me, do I have a special browser that enables me to read banned posts?

  25. says

    -sigh- Regressives. They fill up as many places with as much counterfactual noise as they can, scream irrationality obsession hatred and tribalism when the regulars ask them politely to turn it down, bias when the bouncer steps in to ask firmly, and censorship when they get thrown out. And yet, somehow, it’s always us progressives who have the problem.

    Fuckin’ magnets, man.

  26. David says

    Real horrorshow I notice you aren’t denying being a proxie police person . That you cant distinguish between “random vileness” and “specific disagreements” is perhaps why you get banned with such regularity. What name did you use when that happened last? For you then to try and make something of the hundreds of hits a day, when you are contributing to those,( how often do you look in?)hits is a bit, tragically, sad on your part.

  27. Stacy says

    It’s almost like the Slimepitters were Jews in Germany in 1936…

    Paging Orac. Orac, real horrorshow needs a severe talking to, STAT. Paging Orac.

  28. LeftSidePositive says

    … or complaining about upskirt photos before they’ve been taken?

    Well, someone with a known harassment history had a camera positioned face-up at ankle-height on a telescoping monopod. I think that’s a very different stage of the causal chain than thinking, abstractly, about upskirt photos.

    We were discussing freaking out about robberies that had not even *started* to happen. For your laughably stupid analogy to make any sense, you would have to be chiding people for talking about robbery when some guy with several home invasion convictions shows up at your house with a napsack, half a dozen skeleton keys, a flashlight, and a facemask…but FSM forbid you talk about robbery, since he hasn’t actually stolen anything!

  29. says

    To be less frivolous now – Water @ 3 missed the point.

    you are claiming that ERV commenters are racist anti-semites.

    No, that’s not it. The point is that ERV commenters use degrading demeaning rhetoric of exactly the same kind as the shit in those tweets directed at Greta Hawkins, only they use it about women as women, as opposed to racial Others as racial Others, or Jews as Jews.

    The point is that that’s not a different kind of thing, it’s exactly the same kind of thing.

    The point is that if one is bad, all are bad.

    The point is that there is not some special category of people for which it’s quite all right to use degrading demeaning rhetoric.

    The point is that there’s not some Rule that says it’s bad awful terrible to say “You are a filthy, dirty, ugly subhuman gorilla,” or “Lets hope that AIDS will do what sickle cell anemia failed to do, exterminate your whole simian race” but perfectly fine to say “I would kick her in the cunt” or “smelly skepchick snatch” or “Rebitchka Twatson.”

  30. says

    Drat. I went to clean out the spam filter, and immediately after I clicked ’empty’ I spotted a trackback from Pharyngula – too late.

    http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/23/trolling-trolls-truly-trolled/

    “Some of you know that there’s a small collection of self-satisfied sexist scumbags who complain endlessly and bitterly about Freethoughtblogs — they’re nothing to be concerned about, especially since they’ve neatly encapsulated themselves, like an abscess, and removed themselves from the conversation…”

  31. Sheesh says

    Oh man, I can’t wait. Any second someone is going to show up and tell me that gendered slurs aren’t gendered, they are just naughty adult words that adults use!

    I CAN’T WAIT.

  32. says

    The “Slimepitters” (plus a few non-slimepitters)get blamed for those emails (accusations by Jason Thiebeau). Turns out not to be true. Then Ophelia implies that racists and anti-semites would be welcome at ERV. Also not true. The charge of anti-semitism is particulary noteworthy given that it is directed at Abbie. It’s more than creepy.

    jeez ophelia, they only hate women at ERV, its totally different!! Where do you get off comparing one sort of bigotry to another! LYING! DISHONESTY!!!

  33. real horrorshow says

    Vall says:
    June 23, 2012 at 6:10 am
    “Hmm, you know I think that to troll somewhere you do actually have to post there.”

    It would seem your claim is false. Here you are. Similar to the posts complaining of banning. Maybe it’s me, do I have a special browser that enables me to read banned posts?

    The quote you reference was me saying that Ophelia cannot be said to have ‘trolled’ ERV without posting there. Which is true.

    As for banning, my point was that it makes no sense to tell someone that they are only entitled to complain about banning after they have been banned and so cannot post.

    As for your browser, I am sure it is only one of many things that make you ”special”

    David says:
    June 23, 2012 at 7:02 am
    Real horrorshow I notice you aren’t denying being a proxie police person

    That’s right. I’m not denying it because I don’t know what it means. Does failure to deny an accusation constitute an admission of guilt here in the bubble?

    That you cant distinguish between “random vileness” and “specific disagreements”

    No, I can distinguish between them. If you recall, I was the one who pointed out that there is a distinction.

    is perhaps why you get banned with such regularity.

    Who, apart from you, says that I get banned from anywhere with “regularity”?

    What name did you use when that happened last?

    I used the name David, of course.

  34. Sili says

    Of course, Sheesh,

    Let’s throw in a “Black people call eachother ‘ nigger’ all the time.”

    (Interestingly my dictionary did not have “nigger” listed. But “bitch” is there.)

  35. says

    The “Slimepitters” (plus a few non-slimepitters)get blamed for those emails (accusations by Jason Thiebeau).

    EVIDENCE???

    Oh right, you folks don’t do that. You just pretend to.

  36. says

    Ohh! I think I know what the ERVites are up in arms over! Remember when I said I bet they were happy that they had successfully bullied a bully out of TAM? They thought I was attributing the emails themselves to them! You know, instead of the systematic bullying that they’ve demonstrably engaged in.

    They think I’m attributing to them the “killing blow” when really they’ve just been doing chipping damage for over a year.

  37. maureen.brian says

    Forgive me, real horrorshow, if I suggest that you are missing the point. Let us try again.

    To troll a blog you don’t like / don’t understand / are jealous of requires only a limited mind, an obsessive tendency and the ability not to notice how many times you have made the same point without anyone being impressed with it.

    On the other hand, to write a post on one’s own hated blog and have all the trolls take day-trips across to identify themselves and then troll it? What would you say that was? Genius, perhaps?

  38. says

    You’re probably right Ophelia — their minds are Gordian knots and therefore not really disentanglable; only said knots are made of silly string and shaped to look like the word “cunt”.

  39. Sili says

    They see her trollin’

    They hatin’

    Sadly, they didn’t need the trollin’ to do the hatin’

  40. Utakata says

    @Ophelia Benson

    “Which is totally not remotely in any way comparable at all whatsoever to racist or anti-Semitic slurs. Omifuckinggodno.”

    I think it goes without saying that rascism and anti-Semitic slurs falls under bigotry, as does sexism. Anyone practicing such as in clearly stating it, making apologies for it, giggling with it Sara E. Mayhew style, etc is practicing hate, which is in opposition to reason and rationalism to my understanding. And ERV’ites, certain TAM’ites, et al, need understand that it’s simply not cool to do so. /shrug

  41. Vall says

    “The quote you reference was me saying that Ophelia cannot be said to have ‘trolled’ ERV without posting there. Which is true.”

    Ummm,

    You need to read maureen’s post #48. Then re-read the last paragraph, out loud if you need to. You may be fighting out of your weight class, these are some pretty clever people around here.

  42. says

    ” As for banning, my point was that it makes no sense to tell someone that they are only entitled to complain about banning after they have been banned and so cannot post.”

    OK, let’s apply this to another situation. By this logic, every Christian who complains that their rights are being taken away because, for example, gay marriage may force them to perform the ceremonies is totes within the realm of logic because it might one day happen, despite it being unlikely as all hell. Whining about things that haven’t happened yet and probably won’t is entirely reasonable?

    Wait, I’ve got one! How dare you be sarcastic toward me? I know you haven’t actually done so, but I think you just might and I’m going to complain about it now because it’ll be too late after you have and this is the only place on the internet to discuss anything!

  43. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    Well, that was short. I didn’t expect the Slimepitters to flame out so early.

  44. David says

    real horror show

    “Who, apart from you, says that I get banned from anywhere with “regularity”?

    What name did you use when that happened last?

    I used the name David, of course.”

    That’s a coincidence, so you have been banned? You are also still contributing to the B&W’s hit count, you know the hit count , where the motives for them have become clear inside your brain.
    you didnt address this
    For you then to try and make something of the hundreds of hits a day, when you are contributing to those,( how often do you look in?)hits is a bit, tragically, sad on your part.

  45. A. Noyd says

    Ophelia (#35)

    No, that’s not it. The point is that ERV commenters use degrading demeaning rhetoric of exactly the same kind as the shit in those tweets directed at Greta Hawkins, only they use it about women as women, as opposed to racial Others as racial Others, or Jews as Jews.

    Aren’t at least a few of them known for letting loose on trans folk as trans folk, too?

  46. julian says

    Libel? Where exactly did Ophelia say you all use racist and anti-semitic language?

    Don’t worry. I’ll wait.

    Aren’t at least a few of them known for letting loose on trans folk as trans folk, too?

    I don’t really know but I do remember Justicar mocking Natalie Reed for objecting to being called a tranny.

  47. julian says

    @real horrowshow

    You remind me of a small cyst I had on the side of my ass. It too leaked incredible amounts of puss and ick after a small prick. Maybe I should introduce you two…

  48. RahXephon, Waahmbulance Driver for St. Entitlement's Hospital says

    I don’t think it’s trolling unless you leave your comfort zone of supportive acolytes and censorship powers and post the accusation on the site of those you accuse.

    So…exactly what you and the rest of the pitizens like to do?

    You should get a job at a movie theater, because you’re so good at projection.

  49. says

    I found this all very entertaining. Especially this guy, “real horrorshow” who is, if I can be forgiven for a lack of originality, a real horrorshow.

    Bickering about pedantic points through entire threads is trolling, dude. It doesn’t matter what blog they’re on. Ironically (indeed, contradictingly, a confoundingly consistent quality of words) you have therefore been trolled. By someone who isn’t, despite having trolled you, a troll. Go figure.

    No, seriously, I mean, go somewhere and figure. And don’t bother coming back until you’re done.

    With images of Mudd’s Women self-destructing in my head, I take my leave, with thanks to Ophelia for the diversion. If only it didn’t have to come at the expense of reminding me that there are such things as “MRA” in the world…

  50. smhll says

    I think the internet broke my brain. I can’t tell the mock ridicule from the inherently and perpetually ridiculous. They both have their settings dialed up to eleventy. (Shit! I guess I need to learn the names. Grumblety.)

  51. slc1 says

    Folks, being as how Abbie Smith’s mother is Jewish, I doubt that she is going to be very tolerant of antisemitic comments over at the ERV blog.

  52. Akheloios says

    @ slc1 c.67

    Seeing that Abbie Smith’s mother is also a woman, why does she allow so many misogynist comments then?

  53. Utakata says

    @slc1

    One would presume being female, Abbie Smith wouldn’t tolerate or entertain any form of misogyny on her blog either. Just saying.

  54. Traveler says

    Ophelia, I just want to chime in with expression of support for you. ERV deserves no mercy.

  55. A. R says

    Why does the atheist virology blog have to be so nasty… I haz a sad. Keep going Ophelia.

  56. skepticallydenpa says

    *slow clap*

    Bravo. That was masterfully done. A proper troll uses just the right bait in order to illicit an emotional response from their target. And these kids fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

    I may have to become a a regular reader of Butterflies and Wheels.

  57. dysomniak says

    @71 I would compare the slimpitters to viruses, but that would be insulting to the pathogens.

  58. christophburschka says

    Niggers and their Jew commie

    That’s an impressive slur-per-word ratio.

  59. Phill Marston says

    I found this all very entertaining. Especially this guy, “real horrorshow” who is, if I can be forgiven for a lack of originality, a real horrorshow.

    Anthony Burgess made up the word ‘horrorshow’ as part of the ‘Nadsat’ slang in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. It comes from the Russian ‘khorosho’ and means ‘good’ in a similar way to using ‘I’m bad’ means ‘I’m good’ in the sense of ‘I’m hard and cool’. Some of these trolls seem to have a similar thuggish mindset to Alex and his gang. In ‘A Clockwork Orange’ part of the complex reasons for the violence was a fear of ‘the other’ and reading some of those thuggish comments makes me feel that the posters have a deep-seated fear of women.

    Phill

  60. anna says

    @59

    Yes, they are very much willing ot let loose on us trans folk. I have seen some really vile stuff directed our way.

  61. anna says

    @59 I should almost take it as a compliment. They clearly see trans woman as woman based on the level of hatred

  62. Sili says

    Folks, being as how Abbie Smith’s mother is Jewish, I doubt that she is going to be very tolerant of antisemitic comments over at the ERV blog.

    So she’s a censoring hypocrite? Thanks for the clarification.

  63. says

    @ 67 – another one misses the point! Abbie Smith doesn’t like anti-semitism. Well good! Very impressive!!

    But if she doesn’t like anti-semitism then why the fuck does she like anti-womanism?

    “Oh cuz it’s different. Jews are swell but women are shit.”

    Is that it?

  64. left0ver1under says

    @Ophelia Benson (#79)

    “slc1” has a loooong history of posting anti-semetic garbage on various FtB sites. Nothing he says is worth reading or replying to. He spews his garbage to get attention and get a rise out of people, his life is that empty.

  65. John Phillips, FCD says

    left0ver1under, well to be fair to SLC1, he is only anti-semitic toward the non-Jewish semites, for whom he thinks that nuclear obliteration so as to protect the Israeli Jewish semites, would be a swell idea.

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