Lindy West

For my blog post of the week, I was having trouble deciding what to talk about until the day following our discussion about Lindy West.  I noticed that some of the comments made during the discussion really stuck with me, and it wasn't even that they offended me, it was just that I so strongly disagreed with what was said.  What stuck with me the most with the fact that many people believed that it was the author's fault for the hate she received and that people didn't feel sorry for these kinds of cases for reasons including that there will always be hate in the world and "things should be done instead of feeling bad for the individual cases".

For starters, it bothered me that people believed that she deserved or was asking for the hateful things that were said to her following posting her opinions.  Not only did it bother me, but it confused me as well.  I wasn't familiar with the fact that people deserved to be threatened, insulted, and harassed with fake accounts of dead family members for having an opinion.  To believe that is normal is to believe that the solution to disagreeing with someone is insulting them as opposed to the healthy way of merely stating why you don't agree with them because you disagree with their idea, not the individual.  This isn't a matter of censorship or the first amendment, it is about a society who already sides with hateful people over people with opinions and members of this society perpetuating this ingrained societal belief further and further into our minds by claiming it's someone's fault for having and preaching their opinions to a "free speech" society.

I, too, didn't necessarily feel sorry for Lindy because she was strong and knew how to stand up for  herself, but that isn't to say I don't feel bad for what was said about her. However even in this case where she grew accustomed to these hateful responses and knew how to handle herself, a considerable amount of emotional pain was still inflicted upon her. Sadly not many people are equipped with this capability to ignore such horrible remarks because it is not their job or just not in their nature to deflect such words, so this leads to many people whose sense of selves are completely obliterated.  To say it is useless for people to feel empathy for these people because there is hate in the world is almost synonymous to not feeling bad for victims of war and violence because history proves and our future will most likely prove that their has and always will be war and violence.  Furthermore I don't agree with the claim that feeling bad for individual claims isn't important because instead of feeling bad we should be looking for a solution to these problems because emotions, such as empathy, are evident in our actions.  These emotions that we feel for the individual cases that embody a larger problem are more likely to cause us to work towards solutions to issues.

P.S. I truly hope this isn't viewed as an attack on any individuals because I don't remember who said what, I have no problem with any of you. :)

Sebastian Rogers