A swarm of internet nasties descended on Laila Alawa, an American Muslim writer, publisher and activist, after she was targeted last week as public enemy #1 by an assortment of right-wing sites — starting with The Daily Caller then spreading to assorted even more fringey sites from JihadWatch to PamelaGeller.com.
Alawa’s most horrendous crime, in the minds of her attackers? She once tweeted that the 9/11 attacks permanently changed the world.
No, really. Here’s the tweet that triggered the onslaught of Internet harassment that’s made Alawa’s life a living hell:
You may notice that she did not say that 9/11 changed the world “for the better.” She said “for good,” a phrase that everyone with even a rudimentary grasp of English should know means “permanently.”
But somehow every right-wing Muslim-hater who saw the Daily Caller post that launched this wave of hate decided that she was praising the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001 in that tweet. Adding to their indignation: the fact that Alawa had participated in the making of a recently issued Department of Homeland Security report on violent extremism.
Professional Islamaphobe Pamela Geller gave her post on the subject this absurd headline:
Freedom Daily meanwhile, declared:
A site called The Political Insider offered a similarly twisted misreading of Alawa’s tweet; the site also managed to transform her work last year with the Department of Homeland Security into a direct appointment by Obama after the Orlando massacre.
Within a few days, there was so much nonsense about Alawa floating around the internet that the urban legend-busting site Snopes.com felt obliged to weigh in with a lengthy rebuttal of the most outrageous false claims, leading the author of the Daily Caller piece to attack the author of the Snopes.com piece as a “failed liberal blogger.”
As assorted right-wing websites and blogs fanned the flames, a virtual army of the internet’s worst people descended on Alawa, flooding her Twitter and Facebook mentions with an assortment of angry and threatening messages.
“On Tuesday, June 14, 2016, I woke up to a hell that even I could not have predicted,” Alawa wrote yesterday in a post on The Tempest, an online publication she founded and runs. “Hundreds of people were tweeting at me, the vitriol, hatred and fury in their messages each worse than the last one.”
Here are some of the messages she collected, one of which I’ve lightly censored:
This fellow gave Alawa a promotion to the top job at Homeland Security:
This fellow showed that he actually does know the difference between “for good” and “for the better” — unless the person using the phrase “for good” is Muslim.
And this lovely lady tossed in a plug for Donald Trump after wishing Alawa a gruesome death:
Meanwhile, this familiar face did his part to spread the Daily Caller’s blatant misinformation:
And all of this because a “reporter” at The Daily Caller searched through at least two years of her tweets in order to find a “smoking gun” tweet that turned out to be neither smoking nor a gun.
In her post on The Tempest, Alawa put the tweet that offended the world in context:
“Just like every American, 9/11 was a tragedy that hit close to home,” she wrote.
I was 10 when it happened, living in upstate New York, and the event and ensuing aftermath left me – and the nation – reeling. So much so that it changed my career path for good – I now fight to ensure that every woman, no matter who or where or how she is, has a media outlet to find a space in. So in 2014, upon the anniversary of the attacks, I sent out a tweet, like I do every year, about the events that had transpired.
She explained the difference between “for good” and “for the better,” knowing full well that it wouldn’t make any difference to
the thousands and thousands of people taking it upon themselves to comb through my private history, any public articles I had written, any photos I had online.
She recounted the abuse she’d gotten over the past week:
I received rape threats, death threats, and images that made me almost throw up. People, furious and filled with a hatred against someone they didn’t even know, had decided I was the perfect target for the entire week.
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. Each morning, I’d wake up, and suddenly remember what was happening online, and want to go back to sleep. All I could do was numbly block and report, block and report. … I kept laughing when I told the story in public, because if I stopped, I knew I’d start crying. I’d step away from my phone for 5 minutes, and come back to a hundred notifications.
People told her it would get better.
It didn’t get better. It still hasn’t gotten better. I’m now enemy #1 of racist, conservative, Trump-loving America, the favorite obsession of white supremacists and “patriots,” clickbait for every possible conservative platform and bigots like Pamela Geller, Allen West, and Milo Yannoupolis.
The bitter irony at the heart of all this hate? These abusive, vicious, barbaric right-wing bigots have somehow managed to convince themselves and their followers that they’re the ones defending Western civilization from barbarism.
H/T to Orion Anderson for sending me Alawa’s post.
Exactly. She wrote it correctly, though probably not optimally, but who writes optimally on Twitter 100% of the time?
And even if she’d written it completely wrong that would in no way justify the crap she’s been put through over it.
Oh, Lars, I hope you checked for utility pipes before you started, because hoo boy is that hole getting deep.
Regarding the OP, those palpitating panjandrums of prattle knew exactly what she was saying and the inanity of their reactions; they also knew that their audience of choice would greedily slurp up all the swill they pitch. E.g., Milo Yeahnopealottopus. His schtick is getting increasingly ‘outrageous’, for a pedestrian and bad-minded value of outrageous. He has yet to realize that riding the tiger can be great fun, but dismounting safely is a very different matter.
In conclusion , shut up, Lars.
Well here’s a lovely (by which I mean terrible yet predictable) response to my post:
https://twitter.com/thebasedviking/status/744699954363514880
Naturally, he’s a Milo fan:
https://twitter.com/thebasedviking/status/744698087835340800
See, I was going to say “come together and pilot a giant Voltron-esque robot,” but you’re right, the support group sounds more feasible and sensible.
@Ray
Wait, Voltron is on the table? They should totally do that.
I don’t know, I feel like this still wouldn’t be enough to fluster an actually half-decent troll. At least, not by itself.
…
Granted, that’s giving more credit to anti-feminist trolls than they deserve, clearly.
http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/4/41/056Mankey.png/250px-056Mankey.png
(With all due respect to Mankeys, since they are more palatable than manospherians. Also I have a feeling the image mammoth is going to eat me because this is the first time I’ve tried linking an image here.
EDIT: Hey, it worked!)
Someone named themselves basedviking? Sigh. As a (partial) Scandinavian American, I wish racist misogynist asshats would quit trying to associate my ancestry with bigotry 🙁
Single, childless, over 40 (nearly over 50!) and the highlight of my week IS Game of Thrones. Is that bad?
…god damn it.
I too briefly misread “for good” as “for the good” for about 10 seconds. But my response was, “Wait… that can’t be right.” Because the idea that a professional writer who has worked for the department of homeland security actually believed that 9/11 was a great thing AND was stupid enough to say it in a fucking TWEET from an account openly bearing her name just beggars the imagination. This is not some fringe lunatic troll account, any professional person would know that a tweet like that could ruin their career with no upside.. So when I read something that sounds that improbable, I stop, read it again, and process the context. Because I have a BRAIN IN MY HEAD and I’m not a mindless idealogue out for blood.
With the new Voltron series on Netflix its the perfect time for it
@dslucia
Hmm. So the proposals don’t account for the whole of the observational evidence? A new hypothesis is needed. We need more data! Come, trolls, the ban mammoth awaits! /s, mostly
Re: Mankey
I always saw the alt right more as Sneasels than anything else. They’re ‘edgy’, vicious, and the only Pokemon (until Gen4 anyway) that can learn Beat Up, a move where one calls on one’s buddies to dogpile the opponent. Besides…
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/es.pokemon/images/f/f9/EP267_Sneasel_y_Meowth_disfrazado_de_Sneasel.png
‘Hello, fellow Sneasels. My name is Snilo, and I also care about ethics in whatever. And yes, Nurse Joy is totally a [slurry slur slur]. Read my blog posts!’ All of a sudden, he’s in. That’s definitely how it went down. Definitely
Not in my world! Tonight’s episode was so good. My heart was pounding and my hands shaking the whole time. This episode might have finally been the thing to knock Buffy off the top of my favorite shows of all time list.
As a bonus, sexist dudebros have been complaining all season about how powerful the female characters are right now. There’s especially a lot of whining about Sansa supposedly taking away from Jon being the unquestioned number 1 hero of the story.
@Axecalibur:
Well, if we’re not going by game mechanics… Mankey’s original (Gold/Silver/Crystal, for the record) Pokedex entries are disturbingly accurate:
Sneasel’s entries tend to describe them as more cunning and sneaky.
Though that does sound like a perfect description of Milo you’ve given.
🙂 I am literally watching as much of it as I can before I have to leave for work in 10 minutes! Svefg onggyr fprar jnf nznmvat. Lrnu, Qnal qbrf guvf bire naq bire, ohg vg’f fgvyy n guevyy gb jngpu neebtnag qhqrf zvfhaqrerfgvzngvat ure. Naq V ybir ure yvggyr qentbaevqvat tybirf.
@dslucia
Mankey’s been in the games since Generation 1. Its initial Pokedex entries aren’t quite as extreme:
Red/Blue: Extremely quick to anger. It could be docile one moment then thrashing away the next instant.
Yellow: An agile Pokémon that lives in trees. It angers easily and will not hesitate to attack anything.
Stadium: Quick to anger, it will begin brawling on the slightest provocation. It is unsafe to approach as it is very nimble.
Mankey addendum:
This entry (used variously in Generations 4, 5, and 6, or basically Diamond/Pearl/Platinum onward) seems quite familiar.
Shut up, Lars.
Communication is an inherently cooperative effort, there’s no way it’ll ever work unless everyone is respecting the unspoken agreements only all of human fucking coexistence rests upon. The people speaking must be trying to say what they mean in an understandable way, and the people listening must be trying to understand what is being meant.
The only “mistake” Laila Alawa made was assuming people were going to treat her fairly, like a person. Assuming that right-wingers would cooperate with her in this small and trivial way we’re all 100% dependent on. If you think she shouldn’t have assumed that, you’re thinking it because she’s a muslim and a woman. If you’re honest with any kind of self awareness and think about it a bit, you’re going to admit that you wouldn’t expect the same kind of costly, limiting caution from a white man. That’s the a textbook example of oppression, discrimination, sexism, racism and islamophobia.
@ wwth
I’m not at all happy with Sansa’s arc in this season, for the opposite reason from the sexist dudebros. It’s like Cat all over again. A woman is using her power and showing independence, and the choices she’s making are plainly dumb and incompetent because of course because she’s a woman showing independence! Women amirite, they’re irrational because they get all emotional when all that woman stuff happens to them, like being raped or having children. Rape a woman and she will never organize a military campaign competently ever again.
I hope it got better in the last episode, I haven’t seen it yet.
@KindaSortaHarmless:
Well, yes, I knew that (I’m probably skirting the edge of what people would call a Genwunner, though I did rather enjoy X/Y); I didn’t think the Red/Blue entries would be quite as relevant because manospherians are rarely docile, from what I’ve seen.
@dslucia
Fair enough. I was about ten years old when Gen 1 landed stateside, so I was really into the early games. Though the last games I seriously played were Sapphire and LeafGreen.
There just aren’t enough words to describe how bad I feel for this poor woman. Whether or not you think that she might have been more careful with her choice of words, nothing, absolutely nothing she has ever said has warranted this sick and twisted response. To clarify; I had never heard of her before, but it’s quite easy to go through her Twitter posts and there is nothing there that would give me even the slightest suspicion of her being a terrorist sympathizer. Ridiculous, to say the very least.
The way this whole thing unfolded is just too scary to contemplate. Someone actually went through years of her posts, willfully ignoring all the amazing things she has said, looking for that one in a million, teeny tiny mistake she made (well, not mistake, but she didn’t anti-racist-douchebag-proofread it, shame on her!) to rip it completely out of context and blow it massively out of proportion, after which he drummed up all his brainless followers to make her life a living hell.
Zombies. That’s what they are. They can’t think or act for themselves. They can’t double check “facts” to see what’s going on. They read two words and instantly gobble it up. Because why not, right? The tweet came from within their own “sphere,” therefor it must be true, right? I seriously don’t understand it. This is insane. And it scares the living shit out of me.
Even more terrifying, of course, is the fact that most of these hateful, horrible excuses for human beings didn’t make a mistake. They didn’t misread what she said. They didn’t misinterpret what she meant. They knew exactly what she was saying. They willfully chose to ignore it. They chose to ignore it and twist it, until it fit perfectly into their misogynistic, racist world view. She’s a woman. And a Muslim. It is therefor inconceivable that she might be a nice person, lacking any bad intentions. Had she been a white, Christian man, I still wouldn’t have heard of her today.
I feel so bad for her. It’s almost bad enough for me to create a Twitter account, just to let her know that, luckily, the Horde of Hatred is still a minority.
It also makes me glad not to be a public figure of any kind, because if I was, I’d get totally paranoid about everything I said.
@dustbunny
Yes! It’s been my observation that power mongers try to hoard information. You can see this in offices. This strategy works to the detriment of the entire organization.
Other people who like to hoard information: abusers. This can be to the detriment of an entire family. Abusers: they’re individuals of mystery. Or just plain assholes — take your pick.
Also, abusers like to twist language. Their own words might have unusual meanings, unique to them. The person being abused is supposed to guess at the meaning. As though that person has nothing better to do.
Something else abusers enjoy? Pretending that the person being abused is a very poor communicator. “What does that word even mean? Yes, I know you’ve explained it. Yes, you pointed out the definition in the dictionary. But I still don’t understand what you mean!”
When all else fails, an abuser falls back on that old, reliable strategy of calling the other person “crazy.” I call that gaslighting.
I think that part of what abusers are doing is stalling for time, trying to think up a good argument against whatever the person being abused is saying. And then of course abusers always like to chip, chip, chip away at the other person’s self-esteem.
@wwth: I’ve been complaining to anyone who will listen about this season for somewhat different yet similar reasons (haven’t seen today’s).
I’ve really felt we’re getting a lot of meandering in the plot arcs of all the female characters this season. Where the writers advance their plot 2 steps forward then pointlessly fill time by having them take a step back again.
Arya almost leaves Bravos but then has to spend more time there after getting stabbed only to leave anyway not long after. Sansa and Brienne look to have a plot going somewhere when they meet up only to meander around with the Blackfish who turns out to be a huge dead end. Dany (praise be) literally ended up back where she started in season 1, a captive of the Dothraki only to spend the whole season working her way back to the top.
The only male character I can share this complaint about is perhaps Tyrion who has mostly filled time until Dany comes back. At least everyone’s plotlines in Kings Landing stay on the move.
/veryrantylately
If we’re voting for the official Pokemon of the MRM, definitely Mankey.
MANkey.
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
I like Slowbro. Partly for the Bro part, partly because Slowbro’s possible abilities are Oblivious and Own Tempo (effects aside, I like the names).
My normal putdown to manospherians when they start referencing their youtube celebrities is “I’m not into Pokemon.” They usually look at me blankly until I explain that while they may be excited to see Warcorpse666 evolve into MundaneMatt or whatever, I never got into Pokemon as a child and so haven’t kept up with the silly-named strange-appearance little things.
This thread may be the first time this has not been a non-sequiteur.
Re Game of Thrones:
I kind of feel that the whole series is just stalling for time now. The early seasons were propelled forward relentlessly in a way that made you feel that destiny was driving it, and the characters’ lives were leaves in the wind of events. Now it feels like they’ve done a volte-face and are just replaying the “greatest hits” clips from each character’s life. Tyrion is drunk and scheming, Dany is being Dothraki, Jaime is being smug and preening, and so on. There’s no sense of movement.
That said, the scene where Sansa tells Littlefinger to go and fuck himself is one of my all time favourites. In that particular plotline I vastly prefer the series to the books.