How Mass. Liberals Respond to Terrorism

Opinion
How Mass. Liberals Respond to Terrorism with (Thank God!) Diversity

Margo Abels Attacking from Different Direction?

By Nev Moore
November 2001

Reporting in from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts.....

Two or three days ago after 9/11, our acting Governor, Jane Swift, gave a public speech about “diversity.” Next to “tolerance,” “diversity” is the second most used word in Massachusetts. And that is with a Republican (yeah sure she is!) Governor.

We, the normal citizens of the Commonwealth who can’t afford to escape, were desperate to hear that our water supply was safe and that the resources of the state were being used to protect us.

However, our Governor’s priority was to establish an Anti-Hate Criminal Task Force. This was accomplished with the speed of Secretariat in the Belmont. Amazing in light of the fact that the state’s $700-million per year Department of Social Services has been the most inept, bumbling, corrupt agency in the country, which kills more kids than it “saves.” After years of waiting, the call of the Governor’s Commission for urgent reform of DSS (published in 1992) still haven’t been acted upon. But never mind the dead Massachusetts kids. The important thing is that within a week, Governor Swift established a statewide Anti-Hate Criminal Task Force.

We’ve closed down some of the obvious teaching of casual sex to schoolchildren as a result of the expose of Fistgate, the lead teacher, Margot Abels, now tells us. Is it true that when she gets her old job back, she will head the new Task Force? She and her friends have definitely regrouped and are attacking from a different angle.

Police agencies have been instructed to zealously enforce the state’s hate crime statute, among the toughest in the nation. The task force will be training patrolmen and detectives to pay special attention to “bias indicator evidence,” such as verbal or written slurs. The task force can also put cops in touch with community leaders to “coax people to come forward with leads and evidence,” according to the State House News Service.

The task force is organizing “civil rights” teams of children in our schools, who will receive “special training” at a retreat next month, said co-chairman Donald Gorton III. The team members serve as “peer listeners” (Massachusettsian for “spy”), and they will take reports of harassment or any “bias indicator evidence” and channel it to the proper authorities. “So many of them are below the surface as far as adults can see,” Gorton said. “The idea here is to increase the eyes and ears we have looking out for hate incidents involving students.” More information can be obtained at the website the State (oops, sorry, state) created, www.stopthehate.org.

My suggestion is that Massachusetts immediately outlaw reruns of “All in the Family” to minimize copycat bias indicator evidence.

Just when you thought we couldn’t sink any lower in the insanity pool, (hey, howz about starting a new website www.stoptheinsanity!) now we can be arrested – on an anonymous tip – for what we say or how we look at someone. Isn’t assault and battery already a crime? Never mind being prosecuted for hurting someone’s feelings. Puleeez….

I am a woman. I am blonde. How absurd would it be if I worked myself into a frenzy every time I heard a joke, or a rude comment about a) women, b) blondes? Should I a) consider it hateful harassment, start crying and run to the nearest police officer, or b) should I laugh it off and consider the source? Of course I couldn’t really run to a police officer because as a white, heterosexual woman I don’t fall into any class of person who may receive special entitlement for getting my feelings hurt. (It doesn’t work for hetero women anymore). And, if anyone beats me up, they only get 2 1/2 years in prison, but if they beat up a black crack dealer they can get up to 17 1/2 years because it’s a “hate crime.”

Blonde Woman Needs Help!!

So, forgive me. But, as a blonde woman, will someone please help me get the hate crime concept straight? If a black man is beaten up by a white man, it’s a racially motivated hate crime, but if the same white man beats up another white man it isn’t. It’s only a hate crime if the white guy beats up a black guy, but not if the black guy assaults another black guy? Or if a black guy assaults a white guy? If anyone beats up a homosexual, or calls him names, it’s a hate crime. If someone beats up a heterosexual man or woman and calls him or her names, it isn’t. What if the assaulter didn’t know the assaultee was gay?

What if it’s just two guys having a bar brawl? Why isn’t it a hate crime if someone yells at me and flips me the bird on the road? Unless I’m gay, and/or black, and/or Middle Eastern. In that case, it is an arrestable offense.

In the Massachusetts State House there is a room with a sign painted on the door that says “Black Caucus.” Who would like to hazard a guess on what would happen to me if I suggested we form a “White Caucus,” with the title painted on the door? A (black) friend of mine recently informed me that she was suing her 9-year-old daughter’s parochial school because a nun had slapped her daughter -- because she was black. As a victim of private Catholic boarding school myself, I happen to know that nuns slap everyone equally. Although the government does not allow parents to spank, slap, or even raise their voices to their children, NO ONE will ever take slapping away from nuns.

No one should be attacked, or beaten, or assaulted for any reason. The “why” doesn’t matter. Assault and battery and destruction of property are already criminal offenses. We already have statutes for the consideration of particularly heinous elements of a crime. It would be nice if everyone were always civil and respectful to each other. Of course, this is the real world where we have the unpredictable element of human nature, and there are rude, ignorant, miserable people. Does diversity work both ways? Are we to equally respect their rights to be rude and miserable? Or even to think and express their opinions?

It’s childish to cry over name-calling. It can happen to everyone at one time or another. No one has to accept, agree with, or condone any one else’s point of view. I just don’t get it – I guess it’s a blonde thing.