The Root's Clapback Mailbag: ...Which Proves My Point

This job is hard.

Sometimes, I really want to clap back at readers, but when I read their email, tweet, DM or message, I realize there’s no reason to respond because their entire diatribe actually proves that they are racist. It’s like someone asking: “Why do all the jigaboo niggers think I’m racist?”

For instance:

I had no idea that people loved Ron “DeVirus” DeSantis so much until I wrote this piece about how he’s handling the COVID pandemic. Also, Martin Luther King Jr. makes an appearance.

From: Bob
To: Michael Harriot
Subject: Florida Governor

Message: I live here in Florida. I like the Governor. I believe he has the right idea about Covid-19 and how to handle the situation. You don’t have to like him or come into the state. Just stay away and leave us alone. If you want to talk about an idiot then talk about Fauci, the CDC, Biden, or the entire Dem. Party - they are all idiots. If you’re a liberal, you can add yourself to the above list.

From: John N Florida
To: Michael Harriot

You sir, are definitely a racist individual. You have a hatred for white people. I am a complete opposite from you. Since you are a product of the radical left and are part of the democratic agenda, this comes at no surprise. Unlike you, I don’t cower from the leftist agenda and the people behind it. Your remarks against Ron DeSantis, the greatest governor of all time, are nothing more than hate filled words.

I was raised in a different era. The era of the great Martin Luther King. HE alone, made the change against racism, HE died for his cause, and people like yourself stopped that change and now embrace racism. How dare you call yourself a black man. You are on a path that you cannot envision an end to. You are just another pawn for the radical left and the democratic movement who has been brainwashed like so many others. I’ve seen this same thing happen in my past from the likes of the democrats and socialists like Bernie Sanders.

You sir, can’t see the forest through the trees. You are being brought back to the depths of slavery and government ownership. You truly believe that your life is going to change, improve, with this current movement. You are SO wrong. You are already ‘owned’ by the same people you support. You are given more rights on social media than people like myself aren’t allowed to have, because of racism.

Like I said, I’m from a different era. The Streets! You see, you can’t silence the streets. The streets tell the truth. You can’t handle the truth. People in the streets listen to one another. Social media is for ‘people like you’ who believe they have the power over others, to silence them, to so-called cancel them. That don’t fly in the streets my friend. The voices heard in the streets is more powerful than your voice will ever be. And they are real words spoken by real people. Not empty words or a word salad that you are told to say. You are not allowed by your peers to think and speak for yourself. I am silenced by no one. I’m free to speak, think, and say what I want, no matter who’s feelings I hurt or to whom I may offend.

Challenge me, and you will learn the value and pain of the words I speak. You claim to be some sort of an expert on ‘Caucasians’. Well, I’m much older than you and I am no expert on Caucasians or people of color. I am white. I was brought up poor with very strict parents. I wasn’t brought up to be racist and judge people by color. And I still am that person today. My grandparents were immigrants and they endured racism and slavery over the centuries. But you, who claims to know Caucasians so well, no nothing about our history unless it is told to you. And you will never research history because your leftist democratic ‘owners’ won’t allow it.

You claim to be a storyteller. You really do stink at it my friend. In closing, I’ll leave a small excerpt about being Ignorant: Ignorance is the lack of knowledge or understanding. Ignorant people are either unaware or uninformed. Sometimes we are ignorant because we did not know there was a need to learn something. Other times, we are ignorant because we have chosen not to learn something we need to know.

Dear Bob and John,

Thank you for proving my point. Apparently, your faction has decided to side against science, Fauci and the CDC and team up with COVID, which is my entire point.

And as for my “ignorance” and saying that I don’t know things, the fact that you believe “the great Martin Luther King...made the change against racism” by himself and “died for his cause,” proves that you really don’t know a lot about history, MLK or racism in general. But here’s a brief explanation.

MLK was a Black man. He joined other Black people who were fighting people like you. He was not the only one at any of his marches. King was 12 years old when A. Philip Randolph came up with the idea of the March on Washington. In fact, did you know there were other people there? And King did not die “for his cause.” In fact, it was quite the opposite. He died because white people wanted to stop “his cause.”

But here is the most important thing you need to learn about racism and COVID:

There aren’t two opposing sides to either of these issues.

One side is doing everything in its power to allow a deadly disease to keep spreading. One side promotes lies and disinformation about the issue. One side doesn’t care if people die. One side is keenly aware of what it would take to stop this deadly monster from consuming the country. One side disregards all the data, research and people who know what they are talking about. One side, and only one side, is content with sowing death, chaos and destruction to their fellow Americans because the results helps their political, social and economic agenda.

The other side just wants to live.

These people also have things to say, mostly about sucking cocks.

From: suxkmycockracistpunk
To: Michael Harriot

Go fuck yourself you racist punk POS. I bet your stupid entity’s Soros funded. Get off the plantation loser the world needs less racist punks like you. Dumbass

From: Suckcok
To: Michael Harriot

You lying Commie racist Sharpton ball licking d-bag.

Dear Suxkmycock and Suckcok,

While I am sorry to inform you that I must decline your invitation to suck your cocks, I would like to introduce you to each other in hopes that you may work out some kind of mutually beneficial relationship. Perhaps you could fill each other’s unrequited fantasies while sharing your mutual love for cocks and sucking.

I have also wondered why white dudes love the word “cock.” I may be wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Black person use the term. Perhaps we are more sensitive to the issue of cultural appropriation, as it is clearly a word that only resides in the Caucasian lexicon. Or maybe it is something that was passed down from generation to generation. My mother loved to write, and I became a writer. Perhaps your mother was a cocksucker, maybe even your grandmother. How am I to know?

In any case, please keep me informed on how your cocksucking party turns out. I have never met a verified cocksucker before, much less two, so this is kind of exciting.

Best wishes, on the cocksucking, cocksuckers!

Michael Harriot

And finally, this letter from Joe about the article on the two women who committed the same crime and received vastly different sentences.

From: Joe
To: Michael Harriot

“News for you” is little more than a left-wing political propaganda machine. Sure, the cases of Debbie Bosworth and Karla Hopkins present an individual case of unequal treatment for a white criminal versus a black criminal; but the “News for you” article by Michael Harriot is clearly motivated by racial and political bias.

Harriot specializes in the field of Caucasian culture, including the political, economic, and social habits of white people and their history. He appears in/on the Washington Post, The Atlantic, NBC, BET, MSNBC and CNN, hardly politically and racially neutral. He is currently a senior writer at TheRoot.com.

A minor point perhaps, but Harriot downplays the fact that Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Rick Bell told Hopkins that she compounded her theft by liquidating her public employee pension shortly after the district discovered the theft. The move prevented the state from seizing the money to pay back the district.

Here is the statement from Harriot that highlights his racism: “In Ohio, the state’s Black residents are imprisoned at 6 times the rate of Ohio’s white residents, according to the Sentencing Project. In 1999, a report from the Commission on Racial Fairness found that Black Ohioans are sentenced to prison at grossly disproportionate rates compared to their white counterparts. The study, requested by the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, determined that “the consensus of the available research acknowledges that minorities are more frequently sentenced to prison and generally receive harsher penalties than do whites.”

White this statistic may be true, Harriot makes zero mention of the number of crimes committed by blacks versus whites. Let’s see Harriot address these statistics: Blacks are 13% of the population (70% are born out-of-wedlock). In 2019, Blacks committed 51% of murders (5,660), 53% of robberies, 33% of assaults and 42% of weapons charges (carrying and possessing illegally). Black murders and robberies were 6 times that of whites; Black assaults were 3 times that of whites, Black weapons charges were 4 times that of whites.

These are continuing trends, not just one year. What is the biggest problem for blacks? It’s Blacks themselves. Mr Harriot, please do some research on Blacks and Black history and culture instead of on just whites.

You might just learn something; like for example; who was mostly responsible for enslaving Blacks in Africa? It was Blacks!

Dear Joe,

When you’re right, you’re right.

In fact, it was brilliant the way you used my words against me to make your point. So let’s look at what you said:

Harriot downplays the fact that Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Rick Bell told Hopkins that she compounded her theft by liquidating her public employee pension shortly after the district discovered the theft. The move prevented the state from seizing the money to pay back the district.

I gotta be honest, you are totally correct. I left that entire point out. Perhaps it was intentional bias or just me being a total fucking idiot. In either case, leaving such an important point out is damn near a lie of omission. Who the fuck would someone do something like that if they wanted to present a valid argument?

So what you’re saying is that it isn’t fair to explain that the lady can’t be absolved of her past until she makes adequate reparations. It isn’t enough for her to say she’s sorry. Promising to pay the people she harmed isn’t enough. You’re saying that the people judging her should be able to treat her harshly until she has fully made reparations.

I totally get that part.

You also said the white lady shouldn’t be condemned because she’s white because her race had nothing to do with her crime or her punishment. And once she’s paid her debt to society, we should give her a little leeway. I understood that part, too.

But here’s where you lost me. You pointed out FBI statistics of people who were arrested for crimes they committed. Then you said, I left out the fact that Black people are more likely to commit crimes. But the fact is, according to the statistics on the chart you used, 99 percent of Black people didn’t commit a crime. So you think it’s OK for an actual court to base sentences on the small percentage of Black criminals or that it justifies the racial disparities in prison sentencing?

But that would mean race was a fundamental determinant of how courts, judges and the entire criminal justice system punished people for crimes. And since the data and research shows that white people get less time, that would mean that white people had some kind of inherent superiority in the criminal justice system.

I don’t want to tell you what to do, but instead of writing this letter, you should have opened a dictionary and looked up one definition:

Racism: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

Again, when you’re right, you’re right.

Point taken.

.