Long ago, when I first started to write a column, my fellow columnist, pagemate, and friend Shavana Abruzzo gave me one bit of advice.
She said, “No matter what a reader comments on your column, let them — do not engage — everyone has a right to their opinion.”
Through the many years, and many columns, and many comments, both negative and positive, I have heeded that advice. All have a right to their opinion and the comment page is their forum to shine.
Sometimes the comments are so inflammatory that I find myself almost unable to control my instincts to write back and quote Dan Aykroyd to Jane Curtin in their classic Saturday Night Live schtick: “Jane, you ignorant slut.”
But I gnash my teeth, keep my lip zipped, and go on my merry way to write my next column.
But this time, I feel I must address “Anonymous from Park Slope,” because he/she is not only nasty, but incorrect as well. Here is the comment on my June 2, column about “Evil Losers.”
“You ignorant piece of trash! You are piling all Muslims in one hateful pile as we are not like other people or even human. Why don’t you use what little brains God gave you and understand the difference between a terrorist and a Muslim? The fact is that a person who claims they are Muslim and commits an act of terrorism, well, that person is no longer Muslim because they’ve murdered innocents.
“I know this is hard for you to understand because you and people like you are not intelligent enough to know the difference, but maybe, just maybe you will not be satisfied till a Muslim woman or child gets killed because someone read and believed your ignorant excuse of a column. Pathetic!!”
I am answering this person in light of yet another attack in London, by the hands of another bunch of Evil Losers.
Yes, “Anonymous,” I know the difference between Muslims and Islamic extremists — I have never believed that all Muslims are terrorists, nor do I believe that when twisted individuals bastardize a religion they speak for all followers. And the last nail in your comment is this — I find no joy in anyone’s death, Muslim women and children included.
So, “Anonymous in Park Slope,” may I suggest that you remember innocent women and children have been killed by Evil Losers for a very long time:
• Thirty years ago, the Lockerbie bombing, innocent teens returning from Germany at Christmastime. The cause célèbre: Popular Front for the The Liberation of Palestine, General Command, PFLP-G.
• Fifteen years ago, the innocent mother and child flying to Disney World for a wonderful vacation; the World Trade Center, Shanksville, Pa, and the Pentagon. The cause célèbre: Al Qaeda.
• More recently, Fort Hood, San Bernadino, the Boston Marathon, the Bataclan, Orlando Dance Club. The cause célèbre: ISIS.
Different names, all Evil Losers.
The faces of those innocents whose lives were cut short because of these Evil Losers still haunt my daymares, each and every time another bunch of twisted, Evil Losers lets loose their twisted, hateful ideology on the innocents, I see their faces.
Three weeks ago, a concert in Manchester. One week ago, London Bridge.
Still ,the faces haunt me. Still, the list grows longer.
Not for Nuthin, “Anonymous in Park Slope,” here in America we are free to voice our opinions, and I applaud your right to voice yours. However, don’t think that I will not also say mine — “Evil Loser” is as “Evil Loser” does. Thanks for reading.
Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.
