I get a lot of hate mail, but this is extra special. My movies-for-the-resistance rundown of lessons from Schindler’s List on the occasion of its 25th anniversary generated this lovely missive:
Merry Christmas
We “enjoyed” your “Schindler’s List” piece right up until the end of it.
YOU, darling, are a toxic feminist and you and yours can be disrupted as you will see.
Cheers!
Sandra & Judy
This was sent by snail mail to Salt Lake City Weekly, which ran a shorter version of the essay I posted here. (The idea for this essay was actually proposed to me by SLWC’s arts and entertainment editor, Scott Renshaw.) So I presume that this is what Sandra & Judy took exception to:
• We cannot rely on the beneficence of rich white men to save the rest of us. Of course, we must celebrate Schindler’s campaign of resistance, and indeed it forces us to wonder where the likes of him are now — men using their wealth and privilege for the betterment of all. George Soros and Bill Gates are only two dudes. Yet, we must never depend on the whims of rich white men for anything. No individual should wield such power. It’s no way to run a planet.
I can only assume that Sandra & Judy are two rich white men complaining under pseudonyms.
Still, ya gotta love the insouciance of pairing a not-at-all-veiled threat — I’ll be “disrupted”? — with a sweet little sleeping Christmas baby Jesus surrounded by cute fluffy animals. I feel prayed for.
Is this an actionable threat? Hope you’re okay.
I’m fine. Somehow I doubt that Sandra & Judy will be traveling to London to disrupt me.
In honor of their choice of card, JEEZUS ONNA HOCKEY PUCK!
In some ways, this is incoherent. Or maybe it is that it reads like they didn’t understand what you wrote and I just acan’t see what they see, so it makes no sense to me. But, it feels like a threat, as no one needs to tell you.
I am so sorry. Anything specific we can do to help?
It makes no sense to me either. I honestly don’t understand what their beef is, unless they genuinely are two rich white men. But they could counter my complaint by simply using a lot of their money for noble, planet- and humanity-benefitting causes!
Thanks for the offer of help, but I’m not sure there’s anything to be done.
I’m guessing they were upset by the section about toxic masculinity.
Speaking of which, I thought this article was interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/opinion/sunday/fraternity-sexual-assault-college.html
Yes, MaryAnn, you obviously hit a nerve. Which, come to think of it, is what good writers — and especially journalists — are supposed to do.
The late Harlan Ellison did it. The late Molly Ivins did it. Now you are carrying on that tradition.
I’m not sure how much it helps to think of it in that way but it couldn’t hurt.
I don’t suppose they put a return address on that envelope?
I didn’t see the envelope, but I doubt it.