A Voice for Men responds to the revelation that one of their contributors is a Holocaust denier by calling me a “stalker madman.”

The good folks at A Voice for Men, the most influential Men’s Rights site out there, like to talk a lot about how much they hate hatred. Specifically, the alleged hatred allegedly promoted by feminists. Here’s Dean Esmay, the site’s Managing Editor and Chief Operations Officer, offering some typically nuanced thoughts on the subject earlier today on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/deanesmay/status/597082318168272896

So how have the powers that be at AVFM responded to the revelation that one of their contributors, Indian MRA Amartya Talukdar, is a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan who thinks Hillary Clinton is a “Jewess?” Did they denounce Talukdar for his embrace of perhaps the most hateful hater in history, and take down his posts on their site? Not so much. 

I sent a few Tweets to AVFM head man Paul Elam cataloguing some of Talukdar’s more colorful statements on Twitter; Elam responded by blocking me.

So I sent an email to Esmay.

Dean —

It seems a bit odd for someone who goes on about the alleged “hatred” allegedly promoted by feminists and the SPLC to remain silent about the fact that AVFM just published a post written by a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan,

And, no, that’s not hyperbole. Here’s the proof — these are all archived tweets of his.

Here are the Tweets I linked to. (Click on the images to see the archived versions.)

(In case you’re wondering about the abrupt ending there, Talukdar was trying to write “hail [sic] Hitler” and ran out of characters. He finished up in a followup Tweet.)

I then linked Esmay to my post on the subject, telling him he could find more examples there.

I continued:

Maybe you didn’t know. But you know now — and so does Paul; I contacted him about it on Twitter, and he responded by blocking me, so it’s clear he saw my Tweets. … 

So will you or Paul be doing anything about this?

A fairly simple question, no?

Here was Esmay’s thoughtful response:

So I’m going to take that as a “no, AVFM will not be doing anything about the fact that they have published the writings of a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan who thinks Hillary Clinton is a ‘Jewess.'”

When I first wrote about Talukdar’s, er, interesting beliefs, I said I thought AVFM would respond to the news by deflecting and denying the truth. I didn’t expect Elam would also block me on Twitter for asking, or that Esmay would declare me a “stalker madman” after dismissing direct evidence of Talukdar’s beliefs as somehow being “lies” on my part.

The AVFMers aren’t the only ones trying to employ evasive maneuvers. Talukdar has deleted his original Holocaust-denying, Hitler-praising Tweets. And when I sent him Tweets asking him about his beliefs he first responded by

1. listing a number of famous anti-Semites (including Henry Ford and Richard Wagner and George Washington, who actually wasn’t an anti-Semite) and asking if I expected him to hate them too
2. asking me “why is there rampant divorce illegitimacy and teenage pregnancy in USA”
3. telling me that “you are a fundamentalist who uses terror to scuttle people’s voice”
4. telling me that “you are a hate monger who doesn’t believe in freedom of speech.”

Several hours later, after I wrote to Esmay, Talukdar tried a new tack, admitting that Hitler was indeed a “devil” and a “hate monger”and promising that he would stop denying the Holocaust … if I acknowledged the Bengal Famine.

Obviously, this makes no sense; his beliefs on the Holocaust should not be contingent on what some random person believes about a different historical event. I wrote back:

@a_talukdar You'll agree that there was a Holocaust … if I agree that there was a Bengal famine? That makes no sense whatsoever.

— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) May 9, 2015

@a_talukdar I don't deny the Bengal famine, or Churchill's large role in it, but why would that change what you think about the Holocaust?

— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) May 9, 2015

I asked him why, if he honestly believed that Hitler was a hate monger, he had Tweeted “hail [sic] Hitler” less than a week ago. He replied:

I told him that this also made no sense, and that it sounded like he was just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. I asked him to explain why, as recently as this past week, he had declared the Holocaust a “lie” and “propaganda devoid of any facts,” and was demanding proof that Hitler’s gas chambers had even existed.

After a series of evasive non-answers Talukdar grudgingly admitted:

Shortly afterwards he took his account private. (Luckily I thought to screenshot his recent Tweets before he did this; see here. The only one missing is the one listing anti-Semites.)

These aren’t, I daresay, the actions of someone who has actually changed his mind. So you’ll have forgive me if I doubt the sincerity of his apparent, if grudging, rejection of the Holocaust denial he was so recently, and repeatedly, espousing.