It’s catching fire on social media, but just in case any TWO readers aren’t already aware, Ann Coulter committed another linguistic atrocity after the presidential debate on Monday night, using a derogatory term to describe President Obama:
That Ann Coulter just loves cruelly poking fun at non-privileged minority groups, doesn’t she? I’ll say again what I’ve said before: she’s an odious human being.
But now that your blood pressure is through the roof, take a moment to read this beautiful response to Coulter’s hurtful words. It was written by John Franklin Stephens, an athlete and global messenger for Special Olympics Virginia. I’ve included an excerpt below. Warning: have tissues ready.
Dear Ann Coulter,
Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?
I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night. . .
After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.
I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.
Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.
No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.
Powerful, isn’t it? The full text of Stephens’ open letter to Coulter can be found here. This is how you stand up to a bully.
One final note: I know that many TWO readers will disagree with my decision to write about Coulter today. Many of you commented on my last post (and I presume this one will follow the pattern) that Coulter is so obviously desperate for attention that if we ignore her, she’ll just go away. While I completely agree that Ann Coulter is a shameless and pathetic attention-seeker who will say absolutely anything for a headline and who will ultimately be relegated to the dustbin of history where she belongs, I have to concur with fellow blogger John Aravosis, who wrote last week that we dismiss Coulter at our peril.
Coulter is a joke, so why do we write about her? Because she and Rush Limbaugh are the biggest things the Republicans have going as far as intellectual leaders. In all their coarseness, rudeness, and bigotry, they represent the leadership of the modern GOP. They’re not a bug, they’re a feature. And it’s important that Americans be reminded, every day, of who the Republican party really is, and what it’s become. Limbaugh and Coulter are outcasts on the left, and they get big bucks to speak on the right. We don’t do ourselves any favors by ignoring them.
My sentiments exactly.
Well, folks, at play is a basic principle of interpersonal communication. “Silence is assent.” When one sits silently allowing fools to rant and rave, one is complicit with the ranter. One shows agreement.
Having taught Intpersonal courses at the college level for a number of years, I experienced students inability to understand the damage that our “hidden self” does to us as well as the damage with which “silence” impacts that hidden self.
“That Ann Coulter just loves cruelly poking fun at non-privileged minority groups, doesn’t she? I’ll say again what I’ve said before: she’s an odious human being.”
I’d hardly call her a human being. The best description of her that I have seen is “spare eyelid skin stretched over a bleached Emu skeleton”.
She is a squawking non-entity simply seeking attention fer her newly released and ill-informed diatribe. Disgusting.
$he i$ totally con$umed by her$elf and how $he can capitalize on her per$ona.
As I’ve already dubbed her – “horse-faced media w***e”- I’ll stick with that. She is such a low-life. Her name hasn’t been in front of the public lately and she was feeling a bit left out, so, rather than making intelligent assessments of your topic, just use insulting names. Remember, though, YOU were the one who said that if Romney won the nomination, the party would lose the election. NOW, you are a full blown Romney supporter. Really stick to your principles, don’t you girl? You are cheap and useless just like your candidate.
There are several adults with Down Syndrome who regularly come into the library where I work, and they are much more pleasant, kind and appreciative than most so called normal people who come in here. Coulter is obviously a miserably unhappy person and like all bullies, she tries to assuage her low self-esteem by belittling others. Calling Al Gore a fag is bad enough, but slurring ‘the least of these’ shows what a grotesque human being she really is.
Shouldn’t Palin be screaming out of the woodwork about this?
I take issue with calling Coulter a human being. She has shown countless times this is not so. Odious troll is more accurate.
Rainbow, if a Democrat had used that word, you betcha she would! Palin is another phoney baloney.
Two reactions:
1. No. Just no. On what strange planet does Coulter think that this is ok? Can we send her back there?
2. Seriously, Coulter? You want to make jokes about the intelligence (that was the terrible joke you were trying to make, weren’t you? Never mind that it’s a terrible miscalculation and insult to individuals with disabilities) about the guy who lectured at University of Chicago and was editor of the Harvard Law Review?
im guessing she has a new book out.
Ann Coulter is a despicable, vile example of the female gender. She has no compassion, a trait most women excel in. Her whole personna screams out to listeners, look at me and listen to me because I’m all knowing. She is one messed up piece of work.
Didn’t Sarah Palin condemn Rahm Emmanuel for using this word as an insult? I’m awaiting her press conference censuring Coulter.
Don’t hold your breath, Daniel.
Coulter, for God’s sake get a life. Then retire to the cow pasture with the rest of them.
By all means, John, keep exposing these nasties for all the world to see. All of us in the gay community know that silence gets nowhere.
David Brock in his book Blinded by the Right said that when he was a rightie, he and Coulter would hang out together and denigrate the unfortunate.