Below is
a partial list of emails from readers on their experiences with
bigotry against Republicans and conservatives. If you sent me
an email and it's not on this page I apologize, I limits of space
and time have prevented me from publishing everything I received.
The following emails have been only slightly edited and I've chosen
to print them anonymously. Thanks again for taking the time to
contribute your thoughts and experiences.
Tom Bevan
I was a passionate
Democrat all my adult life.
That began
to change on September 12, '01. Standing by my window overlooking
Second Avenue in NYC, looking down on the normally bustling street
, there was nothing but empty dump trucks and police cars. I was
talking to a liberal friend, a PhD college prof, and I said, "somebody's
got to pay for this." He said, "bombing never works." I said,
what do you mean, military action has always been the only thing
that works. He said...
After that,
we seemed to disagree about everything. He continued to get all
his input from the NYT. I began to favor the Washington Post,
especially Michael Kelly and Krauthammer. One day we had an especially
fierce argument about Palestinian suicide bombers, with whom I
refused to sympathize at all. Shortly after that, two things happened:
(a) this 30-year friend stopped returning my calls, and (b) the
Democrats at Paul Wellstone's funeral booed the Republicans.
I begin to
see an element of rude fanaticism where I had noticed none before.
Now I see it everywhere. I've learned that if I want to continue
getting invited to certain dinner parties, I'd better keep my
mouth shut about my now-centrist political views.
Several years
ago I'm at a very nice party in Los Angeles. I'm sipping white
wine and chatting with a woman that I really don't know. The conversation
turns to the subject of neighborhoods in LA when she says that
"Glendale is very nice but..." she stops and looks around to see
who is listening and says "but there are a lot of Republicans
there". She said the word "Republican" as if someone would use
the "n" word and not knowing she was talking to one.
I have a
very recent story. My wife and I were invited to a friend’s 40th
birthday party. At the table were a group of people that we had
known for a number of years and a couples just met that night.
I had a very pleasant conversation with the new couple about art,
music, the new ABT dancer on loan from the Royal Ballet. We got
along great.
And then
everything changed. My dinner partner said “If not for Clinton’s
[libido] (he used much cruder language) and Al Gore’s quirkiness
we wouldn’t be in this stupid war in Iraq.”
I wasn’t
going to let this pass and revealed my political leanings. He
was aghast. When he fired off his proverbial “Bush is stupid”,
I fired back with a litany of facts on the war, Iraq the chances
for peace in the Middle East, and the risks associated with doing
nothing. He of course refused to discuss any of my points and
simply suggested we end our conversation. My wife grabbed my leg
and I knew when to back off.
I left figuring
it was just a healthy dinner conversation and made nothing of
it. The next day our close friends called (the one’s having the
birthday party) they informed us that my dinner partner was “shocked”
that they would invite such a “Neanderthal” to their party and
that he held back from pointing out the utter foolishness of my
views for fear that I might not understand.
I asked my
friends only one question: “Do you care what my political views
are?” They said no. I told them I made nothing of the last night
and rarely take anyone’s political views personally but that I
do love a good debate.
I have lots
of relatives and friends who are your typical west side of Los
Angeles politically active, Jewish, liberal Democrats. I see them
at family events,parties, but we don't discuss politics. I frequently
get emails from them about some liberal crisis. They send them
to me because, of course, they just assume I am as appalled as
they are about the Florida vote count, Bush this, Bush that, whatever.
I usually ignore them.
Recently
I received an email about the need to write your senator and support
the Democratic filibuster against the "radical, right wing judges
Bush wants to appoint." I am sure it was right out of a People
for the American Way mailing that they forwarded to me.
Finally,
I decided to respond. I emailed back and asked why they were so
upset about,for example, Miguel Estrada. I cited his qualifications
and I asked what the objection was. I told them that I did not
understand the opposition. I got no response.
A few weeks
later, I saw the woman who had emailed me and asked how come she
hadn't responded. She said that she thought I was kidding. She
couldn't conceive that I actually might question the filibuster
position and support Mr. Estrada. I assured her that I had done
a lot of reading and could not find any reason to oppose his nomination.
She promised to send me information on why he was objectionable,
but of course even two months later I have not received anything.
I have experienced
the same thing numerous times. For six years I lived in Massachusetts.
My goodness, from the reactions I got, you'd think that I told
people that I was an active member of the Nazi party, not the
Republican party! Here in New York it's not as bad. But I still
get that same dumb line - once from an Aunt, no less: "You're
too nice to be a Republican (or a conservative)."
My new tactic
is to say in return: "Well, you're too smart to be a Democrat
(or a liberal)." It doesn't help much but it makes me feel better!
Location:
Braintree, MA
Year: circa 1990
My wife and
I had become friendly with our next door neighbor, and would occasionally
invite her to dinner (she was single). Not surprisingly, she would
reciprocate often, and one fine Sunday afternoon we found ourselves
over in her back yard enjoying cocktails.
Loretta informed
us that she had invited another couple to the gathering, and they
arrived forthwith. The male half of the team was rather invisible,
but not so the female; she was a real estate agent and regaled
(or so she thought) us with her latest house sales, and commissions,
and where the housing markets were going, etc. etc.
Finally,
she had to come up for air, and turned to me: "Well what do you
do for a living?" I was winding down one business, and starting
a new one, and really had no desire to go into minute details,
so I replied something like "Well really anything that makes money
right now".
She glowered
and lowered her voice, "Don't say that, you sound like a Republican".
"As a matter
of fact, I am," I replied brightly, "But I'm curious why you might
say that".
"Because
all you Republicans ever think about is money", she snorted.
I wish I
could report that I had a suitable rejoinder, but I was so dumbfounded
that I said nothing. No, I did not point out that she was talking
about money more than I would have dreamed, and no, I did not
point out that she asked me what I did for a living, that I didn't
volunteer it.
Had I been
sufficiently quick-witted, it would have been to no avail, however,
since after a moment's silence she turned to Loretta and followed
thusly: "Loretta, how can you be friends with people who are probably
bigots?" (It now becomes pertinent to point out that Loretta was
black).
I regret
to report that the evening did not improve.
I currently
teach and a program coordinator at a community college. The program
I run is Human Services. My program trains students to work in
places like DSS, nonprofit organizations, any place where there
is a need to help people.
My boss,
a Massachusetts liberal and several others when they found out
I'm Republican said "How can you be a Republican and teach human
services!?" They have even articulated further that Republicans
don't want to help others, that they don't care, that they have
it in for the poor.
I try to
explain that Republicans can help others just as much and do care
for others, but that we do believe in hard work and self-sufficiency.
In my program,
I teach the students how to teach others to be responsible for
themselves and do problem-solving. The idea is to get those in
need to the point where they don't need governmental assistance.
And by teaching
in a college I have even had to hear comments by other faculty
about how the Republicans are causing all these problems in our
nation. Everyone just assumes that I agree with them. And when
I go to community meetings related to my program (with local agencies)
I've heard comments in the meetings by presenters that have degraded
Republicans or the President or a Republican congressional representative.
I remember
one particular meeting right after the election in 2002 where
the presiding official for the group stated that she was extremely
sick after the results of the election with more Republicans gaining
offices. She then went on about how every agency there was going
to lose grant money and starve to death. The next speaker carried
the theme with how those terrible republicans had decided they
couldn't work with illegal aliens and they would have to find
other sources of funding! The thought of the government not funding
them was the most horrible thought!
I usually
just sit and listen. I've found that trying to explain things
or contradict them isn't usually worthwhile.
My wife and
I are among the 20 or so registered Republicans in our voting
precinct in Baltimore, a stout bastion of liberal Democrats. I
cringe every election day, as we wait to caste our votes, as we
have been booed, hissed, and told "shame on you" by poll judges
for insisting that a two party system is a good thing. At very
least we get, "ha ha, here come those stupid conservatives."
I'm a single
guy living in the DC area (fortunate or unfortunate as it may
be). Most of my guy friends are fellow conservatives and we like
go out for a beer or two sometimes and chase the women.
A while ago
3 single guys meet 6 or 7 single gals out for dinner one evening.
Pretty good odds you say? I guess I didn't mention that they all
worked on Capitol Hill....and it was right smack dab in the middle
of the Lott fiasco.
All dinner
the guys tried to ignore hearing things like "those racist Republicans"
etc.... I mean, I felt ashamed at what Lott said, but how did
that make ME racist? Hell, I'm from Indian decent and I experienced
racism firsthand growing up in Robert Byrd's own West Virginia.
What could these mostly white women possibly know about it?
But I understand
that "racism" is a one-way street and I've been used to being
called "Nazi" or "Fascist" in the past so I continued to keep
my mouth shut. I wasn't about to get into an intellectual debate
about racism and politics...I mean they didn't seem to care about
the issues surrounding what was an albatross around this country's
neck for decades.
They seemed
to be in for petty politics and slaps at Republicans. Plus I figured
if they knew my true colors there would be no way I'd get to take
one of them out on a date!
Well, after
a one-sided conversation and dinner and a few martinis the ladies
got more and more rambunctious. At some point one of them said
"Republicans want to keep all children stupid." I mean, can someone
be serious to think that? It's not rational or logical at all
(then again neither are liberals) I don't know what I would've
said since I had left the table. But one of my conservative friends
couldn't bear this comment and finally the "debating" started....
I don't know
how many people have been exactly bigoted to me. The reaction
is usually one of either suspicion or patronizing incredulity.
It's either
"You seem like such a nice person, very happy and affable. You
must be very deceitful, and I am going to keep my eye on you,
Mr. Creepy" OR "You seem like such a nice person, very happy and
affable. You'll grow out of this conservatism when you [read more]
[grow up] [start paying attention to what's really going on in
society]."
That being
said, I mostly kept my mouth shut at Columbia, where there were
a number of PC witch-hunts when I was there in the early '90's.
It didn't
take much experience there to realize that these people were going
to punish non-Leftists for failure to conform. I managed to be
present at two of the most heinous instances, where there was
actual lying being used, in one case, to run a professor off and
in the second case, to expel a student or at least prevent him
from graduating with our class (he was forced to sign a public
apology and put it in every student's mailbox and he could not
march in graduation, but he wasn't expelled; I think many thought
he should have been expelled, just on the general grounds that
he was under suspicion). It was fallout from the Thomas-Hill hearings,
I think.
One of my
good friends at Harvard once told me, "You do realize that you're
my token intelligent Republican. Whenever I'm with a group of
people and they say, "No one intelligent is a Republican" or "No
one intelligent is pro-life," I tell them about you." I wasn't
insulted, but maybe I should have been.
I could go
on and on ad nauseum, but I will say that I provoked at least
one person (and I cut her off as a friend, rather than the other
way around), who was complaining about a campus Republican group
and how she wishes people would pick up bricks and smash the Republicans'
faces in and kill them. This, despite my general bonhomie, got
to me. After telling her I was a Republican and asking her to
explain herself, and she refusing to recant, I cut her off.
For the ultimate
in anti-conservative bigotry, try attending Mensa meetings almost
anywhere in the country (or the world, for that matter).
As a Mensan
who once worked in the White House Science Office (Engineering
Fellow, 1992 - 1993) and who went to D.C.-area Mensa functions,
I often felt like the devil at revival meetings. (At my one Mensa
party in London, years back, at least the leftists admitted their
biases up front, without too much rancor. In Singapore, the Mensans
were rather antigovernment, which was understandable, since they
didn't have a lot of personal liberty there.)
In Indianapolis
before that, in the mid-1980s heyday of Sandinismo and such, as
a Mensan I endured so many leftist speakers I wanted to vomit.
For example, in an otherwise interesting lecture about genocide,
I had to publicly interrupt the speaker to ask when, if ever,
he was going to comment on Mao, Stalin, and Lenin, not to mention
Pol Pot or the Vietnamese Reds who killed their tribesmen.
To the rapid-fire
applause of the little old ladies in the group, this professor
alleged that these guys weren't really genocidal at all, though
they have killed a few thousand in the course of liberating and
protecting their countries. Same thing when a pro-Red "liberation
theology" type glorified the Sandinistas. People asked me why
I was so anti-Communist, and so anti-progressive.
Back in the
mid-90's, I had interviewed with a foreign exchange trading company
for a market analyst position. At the first interview, I spent
4 hours meeting with 3 VPs, a director, and an analyst. At the
end of the day, the HR Director told me I had done really well
and they wanted to consider me for a currency trader position,
rather than analyst, which paid about $15k more per year. We then
set up a time for me to come back for a final interview with the
President.
When I met
the President, I noticed that after he finished reading my resume,
he shifted his chair and leaned back to reveal a picture of himself
shaking hands with Bill Clinton. He then probed me about working
in the Senate and told me how he already had "a few ambitious,
young Republicans working" for him. He then quizzed me about my
work at a few think tanks asking if they were "right-wing, Ollie
North type outfits."
After less
than 30 minutes, and only one question related to currency trading,
he thanked me for coming and showed me the door. I guess he had
already filled his quota of "ambitious", "right-wing" Republicans.
I laughed
about it until the next morning when I woke up to get ready for
my $11/hour temp job. I can laugh about it now.
The only
other experience I would add is that I recently had a very liberal
friend express shock that I drank herbal tea. I still haven't
figured out the connection between politics and tea.
I dated a
flaming liberal for about a year. We tried to stay away from politics,
but it was impossible to completely eliminate it from all of our
discussions.
She hated
President Reagan because her ex-husband was one of the fired air
traffic controllers (who walked off the job). I eventually got
her to admit that her ex broke the law and that any president
could not have stood by and let a small group hold the entire
nation hostage.
So, then
she would say that Reagan cut spending on mental health and that
really angered her. Again, I asked her who controlled federal
spending and what party was in control of that governmental body
during the Reagan years.
Even when
I stated that domestic spending was increased during each year
of Reagan's presidency and that the states controlled that type
of health program spending she wouldn't budge.I guess it's because
she had no other factual examples for why someone should hate
Reagan.
At the end
of these discussions, I would always end with "I'm a staunch Republican
whose personal hero is Ronald Reagan and you think I'm a nice
guy. And you know for a fact that I'm not a racist and that I
don't want to destroy the environment or treat poor people as
serfs." She would say, "Yes, but you're different." And I'd always
say, "No, I am a very typical example of the white Republican
male that Democrats and people on the left hate instinctively."
This quandry may have damaged her perception of reality permanently,
but I can't say for sure.
I can't tell
you how often I have encountered people who, upon learning my
political leanings, remark, "Wow...you seem too nice to be a Republican!"
It's almost like they are disappointed to realize that I am a
reasonable person. But they usually withdraw their friendship
anyway, since they do not believe that their beliefs can coexist
with mine in spite of other commonalties.
As a former
graduate student in comparative literature at an Ivy League school
-- and the ONLY Republican as far as the eye could see in my graduate
world, I can't tell you how much hatred was directed toward conservatives.
Conservatives were "freaks" and "Bible-beaters" (even if you weren't
Christian or even religious) and "racists." Indoctrinated liberals
used a level of irresponsible language that astonished me, and
I was held to an entirely different standard in my work.
In the real
world, I still experience liberal intolerance on a regular basis.The
demonization of Republicans has been so successful that it is
really hard for people to open their minds to our point of view.
In some ways, I understand that. I mean, why is it a bad idea
to be guarded about opening your mind to a true, hateful misogynist?
The only problem is that I am a woman. If I believe that women
don't need government patronization to be successful and empowered,
how does that make me a traitor?
A cute story
about the underground conservative movement. I was having dinner
with a new woman friend about the same time the Gore-Bush election
bru-ha-ha was going on. Since I was very passionate about the
fact Bush actually won the election, despite the media manipulation
of the presented results, I mentioned something about a news item
that was just published.
My friend
said she was hesitant to bring up her Republican leanings, inasmuch
as I had all the hallmarks of being a classic liberal female --
college- educated, in the environmental business, etc. However,
she went for it and she expressed her thoughts that Bush was truly
the winner. We were both so happy to meet a like-minded female
that we have been the best of friends since then.
