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.
I too misread the tweet at first, and know what my first thought was? “I wonder what she means by that?” Like, if I heard someone literally say “I think that 9/11 was good for the world” I would be instantly curious about why they thought that. I would be dubious, but who knows? Maybe there’s some utilitarian perspective that could show 9/11 as being a “good” event for the world?
Basically, the large number of ways to react to this tweet that don’t involve immediately jumping to a vitriolic smear campaign highlights the agendas at work. They have no interest in engaging the topic, they are just looking to drive traffic at the expense of an innocent person.
Not to mention how the fuck hard is “one’s choice of words?” Or even “their” for that matter? His correction was still ungainly and poor usage.
@IP – “A Trump supporter blocked my cat on Twitter, and all I got was this poorly spelled death threat.”
(A bit wordy for a T-shirt, but still a few whoms short of a MGTOW slogan.)
@Buttercup
Pretty sure I can fix that, if you don’t mind!
“A Trump supporter whom blocked my cat on Twitter has sent me a poorly spelled death threat, whom was all I got actually.”
@IP
If I ever need to summarize the nature of social media and online discourse to one sentence, it shall be that sentence.
All of this “if only women did [this] they would avoid being assaulted” reminds me of a Twitter/Tumbler blog (forgot which platform this was on) I came across a few years ago that was dedicated to making fun of that kind of ‘advice’. Like, one bit of ‘advice’ was “Throw batteries at the feet of a would-be rapist, and run away while he’s busy draining the batteries of their energy. Because all a rapist wants is power, right?”
Unfortunately, I found that site while on my old phone, and haven’t found it again to bookmark on my newer phone. 🙁 Yet. (I don’t have a personal computer to sync my phone to, so that solution’s out of the question here. 🙁 )
@Verily Baroque
Is this a future classic? :p
Hey, let me know if you want any more help with your Swedish!
I’ve suggested for Citizen Radio to cover Laila Alawa’s story.
I remember seeing tweets like that!
Stuff like “Become ethereal” and “Be a unicorn”.
@IP: I suppose if you had a good, sad shot of your kitty, I could ‘shop it into a shirt design. :U
@PI
I’ll take a look! :p
Also, I made a 2nd donation to your GoFundMe, but I accidentally used my meatspace email address. :/
I don’t think it makes any difference though.
IP: Aw, thank you very much!
If you do find a good picture, you can either email it to me or tweet it at me, and I’ll see what I can do. Hope Fingie’s looking forward to being famous! 😀
@PI
I’ll look tomorrow. Fingie is a very attention seeking cat, so I’m sure I’ll find someting suitable. :p
No pressure to answer, but are things moving along for you?
Okay, I’m really drunk so I’m just gonna recommend an artist who’s only 23 but has already been around for a long time. Lately he’s come out with a series of major hits, all positive and conscious roots reggae/dancehall tunes. His name is Jahmiel. Here’s three of his recent hit tracks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJ24ikrJEA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qpagRO0q9o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbheXex2L_M
If you appreciate any of this at all, make sure to check out Chronixx, Deep Jahi, and Dexta Daps.
@IP: Things are starting to move quicker, which is scary, but I’m trying to get used to it.
I’m currently working on sorting through my stuff and figuring out what can stay and what can go, and planning for travel and shipping and stuff.
@PI
My Significant Otter had a LOT of stuff shipped from the US when she moved here. I had to carry it all up to the third floor. :/ It was quite expensive too. I really hope it all works out for you!
Probably a very random question for this blog, but I’ll just throw it out there.
As a newly-embraced non-binary, would I be welcome at a random gay club? What if I and be my bi woman Significant Otter went there together? Would I even be welcome?
@IP
Depends heavily on your local gay clubs. A lot of such places are really, particularly, places for cis gay (esp white) men, rather than for all of us, unfortunately.
I don’t really go out to bars but it would hurt to look around and make sure the club is trans and bi friendly. While many places are accepting of trans people, there’s still a lot of transphobia in the cis gay community. There also happens to be a lot of biphobia. If it’s a bar that caters to either lesbians or just gay men, I’d be careful, but if it’s a general gay club for everyone, it should be okay. You can probably google the name of the club to make sure. Hopefully there’s reviews.
Some gay clubs are more gay than others. Do you have a club in your area that has a reputation for having many straight patrons? Clubs that feature drag shows in particular will have a lot of straight people in attendance. Assuming you’re still presenting as male, you wouldn’t stick out in the least at some clubs with a female date.
You also might want to try going to a gay club in a friend group that includes some gay people if that’s at all possible.
It’s probably different in different cities, but in my city at least, people of all orientations and gender identities go to gay clubs without it being an issue.
I found a pretty inexpensive way to ship my stuff cross-country: Amtrak.
They’ll ship up to 500 lbs of stuff, only charging about fifty bucks for the first hundred pounds, and .46 cents USD for every pound after that.
However, there are restrictions: Each box can only be three feet by three feet by three feet, each box can’t weigh more than 50 lbs by itself, and you can’t ship electronics, furniture, or fragile items because Amtrak doesn’t want to be responsible for broken stuff or sensitive electronic equipment.
I’ve estimated that I’ll be shipping roughly 200 lbs worth of stuff, so it should cost about a hundred dollars USD and two weeks to move all of my stuff, since I don’t own any furniture and most of the weight of my stuff will be books.
I’m still trying to figure out what I should do with my computer and game consoles though. I’m not sure I want to test it, and I’m trying to avoid mailing them via the US Postal service if I can.
I’m thinking I might just pack them in a second suitcase very carefully and check them on the plane with me when I fly over there.
What the heck? Even if she DID say it changed the world for ‘better,’ then that STILL wouldn’t mean she’d deserved this amount of abuse!
Whoa. Remind me not to post on WHTM again when I’m ridiculously drunk.
Thanks everyone for your advice though. 🙂 I have a feeling most gay bars here have plenty of straight people, since homophobia is almost as taboo as being a Nazi for most people in this city. (Remember I posted a picture from the tram a while back, of a sign for seating reserved for lesbians?)
I’ll keep putting this off for a while, I think.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
May I use this as the title for a short story? To be clear, I haven’t the faintest idea what the story is about and I’m mid-novel, but if I can think of the story, may I use it?
Poor Laila. I can sort of see the “for the better” meaning if I squint, but it’s definitely not the usual meaning, and even if it were, no way would the abuse could ever be justified. -definitely a case of looking for an excuse to bully. I sent her Twitter hugs FWIW.
@Sheila
As the originator of the quote “A Trump supporter blocked my cat on Twitter”, I hereby give you permission to use it. :p
@IP
You may come to regret the above sentence… 😉 I’m in a situation where I should be fluent in Swedish (keyword: should), but due to lack of use… well, I can still read it mostly fluently but my writing is, let’s say, occasionally grammatically unorthodox.
Basically my best bet to get my Swedish back to an acceptable level is to either read more in it, write more in it or some combination of both. I could get back to you later to ask about recommendations for blogs or forums on specific topics, but I’ll keep trying google first to save you as much trouble as possible.
TL;DR: Thank you for the offer (I really appreciate it) – I’ll keep it in mind (unless you have time for an occasional pen pal? 🙂 ).
@IP
The language barrier is impeding me somewhat (I’m relying on Google translate mostly) , but from what I can tell, it looks like you’re in luck for places to go in your town (assuming I’ve correctly recalled what town you said you live in). (Take it with a grain of salt, machine translation is still pretty crap_.