*PLEASE SHARE* Dear You Said It Editor and Staff, and the Editor of the Daily Sentinel (Sunday, September 7th) I work in the behavioral health field and often times in collaboration with the department of human services which includes working with the homeless population in the community. Upon reading the Sunday newspaper, I was shocked and saddened by the blurb you allowed to make its way in that compared homeless people to wild animals. Do you normally allow hate speech in this column for entertainment purposes? The blurb even went as far to imply violence toward the homeless. Here, Ill quote it for you: Have you ever noticed that the homeless people and the starving bears are very much alike? When people feed them, they come back and stay. The only difference is that Game and Fish shoot the bears. I dont know if you even realize how biggoted and intolerant this statement is. Its not funny or fun. Its not even harmless. It perpetuates a distinction of a particular demographic. Its a dangerous statement. How can we treat the homeless like human beings if we paint a picture as if they werent. You have a responsibily to make a distinction between the preservation of free speech in concert with entertainment, and blatant dangerous hate speech that has no business in the news paper in the context that it is in. There is no difference between this language and racist or homophobic language. I have access to a very large social network and will point some very needed attention to this. I recommend that you publically apologize for allowing this hate rhetoric into the news paper. One final thought: think about the influence this statement has on a younger generation we can only hope to cultivate a sense of respect and tolerance toward every facit of our community.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 13:24:38 +0000
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