Just Stop

[Content Note: Antisemitism.]

Daniel Clevenger, the mayor of a town in Missouri near the residence of Frazier Glenn Cross, who killed three people at Jewish centers in Kansas earlier this week, says he knew Cross well, and shares his antisemitic beliefs, even though he doesn't agree with his actions.

There is a whole fucking story about this guy's rank antisemitism, which includes this incredible passage:

Although Clevenger puts blame on some minorities, he said he stands firmly against violence. He also said he doesn't hate anyone.

Oh, I'm quite sure he said that he doesn't hate anyone. That's what every jackass bigot says. But I am tired to my very bones of reading that line of bullshit in every news story featuring quote after quote of unapologetic disgorgements of vile hatred.

That isn't news. It is the opposite of a fact; it is a demonstrable lie. It doesn't belong in a news story.

I'm achingly fed up with this habitual, reflexive inclusion of some line of manifestly absurd apologia in news stories. Who the fuck cares if someone who rattles off six paragraphs of hatred then asserts he doesn't hate anyone? That's a lie. Stop printing it.

Just stop.

There is absolutely no need to continually breathe life into the ridiculous narrative that it's possible to dehumanize, other, oppress, marginalize, scapegoat, or otherwise demean an entire population of people while not "hating" them.

And even in some semantic game where it's possible to monolithize and demean an entire population of people without "hating" individual human beings from that population, who the fuck cares. It's irrelevant.

"Hating" someone isn't the bigger offense. Between oppressing me with a smile, and hating the fuck out of me but nonetheless respecting my basic rights, I'll take the latter every time.