Joan Fleischman, Miami Herald

January 23, 2008

Joan Fleischman

The Miami Herald

One Herald Plaza

Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: “…but words do hurt me” – A comment on your “Talk of the Town” column in today’s Miami Herald.

Ms. Fleischman,

As a recent convert to the ranks of the perpetually offended minorities – mine consists of rational adults who care about language and “eclectic indignation” – I take umbrage at your choice of words in today’s column. You call Steven Knight, a young man whose picture screams WASP, a gringo. You did not set the word off with quotation marks. I take that to mean that the word is sufficiently sanitized that no proscription attends to it.

Not so. Not so.

I am offended by it.

Further down in your column there is a story about Hank Greenberg. His picture screams too much chicken fat. In fact, his picture suggests that his briss was accompanied by a chicken fat IV. His picture shows that he has more chins than a Chinese phonebook.[Thanks Frank!] He could be a new category in the Guinness Book of Records: immeasurable cholesterol levels. His career as a double for Brad Pitt will go nowhere. His parents hung lamb chops around his neck so the dog would play with him.

Why didn’t you just call him “kike”?

This afternoon I am going to the taxpayer funded African-American library. Do you think it would be OK for me to ask for a copy of Dick Gregory’s autobiography by its title? Perhaps you’ve forgotten it. It’s “Nigger”.

Maybe I’ll go to the Stonewall, the taxpayer funded library that is dedicated to the Homosexual/ Lesbian Community. I’ll ask for all books with word “faggot” in their titles. That should go over well, don’t you think?

Wasn’t it Alice who said” those words mean what I want them to mean”. Would it be kosher to mention the Red Queen or would the Word Police be summoned?

What I do know is that I am offended, deeply offended, by your choice of words. Who will put balm on my wounds?

PS – If you’re not a shikska would that make you a macaca?