Sunday, September 5: The A.D.D. Detective
CRIME & FICTION
by Leigh Lundin
If you’re like me, you receive a lot of ‘fiction’ in your eMail, no-longer-thinly disguised diatribes about someone else’s race or religion. These rants pretend toward ‘truth’, which make them worse than fiction, since the best fiction opens a window upon truth itself.
At the last moment last week, I pulled a couple of news stories. The stories were intended to make us shake our head at silly criminals (and horrid punishments) and show we have more similarities around the world than differences. At the final instant, I realized these particular stories about the Middle East would fall in the shadow of this coming Saturday, the anniversary of 9/11, not merely one of the great crimes of our era, but the indulgence and promulgation of great evil.
Looking at the stories, I spent this past week trying to shape what I want to say. It’s easy to showcase a nutcase preacher (in Florida, naturally) who claims he’ll burn the Holy Qur’an on 11 September or point up the fool who stabbed a New York cab driver who happened to be Muslim… and American. The harder I tried to articulate the underlying message, the more my writing skills failed me. I wished Dick Stodghill was around. He had a marvelous way of sharp expression, but was never unkind.
It troubles me Americans know so little of our world, as John Floyd hinted at yesterday, but as large and great as our insular nation is, we’re best at dealing ‘in the small’ with individuals.
Decades ago, a magazine writer visited a racist redneck bar. A black man ascended the stage and began singing country and western. Raucous talk fell silent as the audience listened in awe.
Finally, one man said, "Who’s the {n-word}?"
A couple of rednecks turned angrily upon him and said, "That ain’t no {n-word}, that’s Charlie Pride."
Charlie Pride– He transcended their larger prejudice. That writer strove to make the point his audience stopped seeing the artist as a black man. Perhaps, but I think something else happened. They grew to focus ‘in the small’ upon the individual whom they came to respect and love, Charlie Pride, conquering one man at a time. That’s what we do best.
As I said, I get a lot of ‘fiction’ in my eMail trying to disguise embedded ugliness. More disturbing, much of our eMail fare make the Turner Diaries look tame. Don’t believe it? Load it on your Kindle or iPad and check it out. Madness has become mainstream.
For a while, I meticulously dissected some of these screeds, laying bare the fabrications they were predicated upon. To my thinking, anything built on a lie is still a lie, it’s rotten at its core. One of the eMail perpetrators hotly fired back a note arguing the fact the assertions weren’t true didn’t matter, they represented ‘a greater truth’.
How can one answer that? We can’t. People who look for differences see only differences. For those who see similarities, differences fade into nothingness.
The only thing we can do is look at what binds us– we as Americans or British or Canadian, New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans or perhaps a sprinkling of elsewhere. Most of all, we’re human– we love, we fear, we make mistakes. We may (or not) be Jewish or Hindu, Christian or Muslim. When a Christian harms a Muslim or vice versa, they damage a brother or sister, they hurt a child of God.
As authors, we try to keep our prejudices in check as we write, unless we target a niche audience. I’m content reading a thriller or watching a good movie without knowing or caring the writer’s personal views unless he lets them intrude into the story.
Take Mel Gibson who manages to personally offend damn near everyone with his off-screen foibles. In contrast, a reviewer remarked Clint Eastwood managed to offend everyone equally. He seemed to do it impersonally with a wink that hinted at something slyer.
MWA Edgar Award winner Costa Gavras is another study, accused by the Greek camarilla of being communist following his 1969 film Z, then in 1970 accused by the Soviets of being anti-communist for L’Aveu (The Confession), and still later anti-Vatican for his 2003 Amen. He must be doing something right.
More detail would merely obscure my message about approaching 9/11: Read lots, research more, reject the ‘fiction’, but especially, don’t let the bad guys win. In other words,
Be kind to those around you— and peace be with you.
Great column, Leigh, and a great message!
Yes, we must always keep in mind that we are all humans, regardless of skin color, culture, or religion. It greatly disturbs me that so many people (not just in the U.S. but in Western Europe too) seem to hold such negative views of Islam and Muslims . . . especially after 9/11. In fact, some people seem to actively hate ALL Muslims now. Having negative views of and despising Al Qaeda terrorists is okay, I say, but not the whole religion of Islam with over 1,5 billion followers worldwide, for crying out loud! But sadly, I guess that’s something some people are too stupid or too racist (or both) to ever understand.
P.S. Have you actually read The Turner Diaries, Leigh? I tell you, I was disgusted just reading about it.
Turner wordsmithing is little better than I might have expected, but it has an unclean feel to it. I found myself skipping ahead when my eyes began to roll. Sadly, several times a week I find worse in my mailbox.
Turner racial and political stereotypes are predictable, but the narrator heaps disdain upon pretenders who don’t follow through. It was the book Tim McVeigh carried with him when he bombed the federal building in OKC– he followed through.
Adherents like to claim the author was prescient and predicted flying a plane into the Pentagon on 9/11. In the story, it was actually 9 November and it was a Stearman, if I recall correctly, doubling the culpability.
Sadly, several times a week I find worse in my mailbox.
Really? I find that almost unbelievable! Who sends those things? The local preacher? Or hate groups in your neighborhood? And don’t you need to be on someone’s mailing list to receive these so-called “fiction”?
Leigh, I hope you have a good anti-spam program, anyway. (And don’t read everything you get . . . it might drive you all but crazy!)
Okay, after reading this article (it’s a bit dated but informative nonethless) I have a better idea of what you’re talking about. It’s really unbelievable . . . and it almost makes one despair of the human race. And
http://www.floridatrend.com/article.asp?page=1&aID=44889
“An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi
>Be kind to those around you— and peace be with you.
Hear! Hear!
Hi ABA! Thank you for the Ghandi quote, on the mark.
Josh, I risk getting off-message and making my answer longer than the article with some of the recent fruit-cakiness. The short answer is that sometimes good people believe bad information.
Many people would be shocked to learn a major disseminator of many of these eMails, the Council of Conservative Citizens, is internally known by an entirely different set of initials… and you can take it from there.
And about the local preacher? Yeah, sometimes, but that’s a whole different story. The best we can do is what bin Laden doesn’t want… be kind to our fellow man.
Several things.
1) I don’t dislike or hate Muslims (My lovely daughter-in-law is one), but I do dislike the handling of a heinous crime in my country! Were the tables turned I have a feeling I’d not be so well “handled”—-
2) I met Charlie Pride once and he fell in love with my daughter. She was in fifth grade and I made her go with me to meet him because I couldn’t get anyone to go with me! He epitomized a person so desparately wanting to be with his own kids…so he adopted mine for 5 minutes. I didn’t notice his color, but his eyes spoke volumes.
3) How dare you compare Mel to Clint. I mean a “wink” is worth 1000 words. The thing is Clint is smarter than Mel and knows how to handle people and their thoughts. That’s why is an excellent director…most recently having put out at the same time pro and con war movies. Gran Torino was an excellent example how long time prejudices, when taken down to one-on-one and add survival is how most of us truly are. We get way to wrapped up in the big picture when the little picture is next door, feeling the same prejudice. Then boom….survival brings us back to who we really are inside our hearts.
4) Delete the damn email!!
You’re right. These days, I strive to delete most of the eMails. Research and debunking burns a lot of time and energy and not everyone is open to factual information.
Funny, alisa, with your love of country music, I had you in mind as I wrote about Charlie Pride without knowing you’d met him. What a great story you have!
While I contrasted Clint with Mel rather than compared, your Gran Torino example is excellent… I should have had you write the article.
Me? Country Music? Not really. I only just discovered Waylon Jennings after I heard him sing Bridge Over Troubled Water and realized he had a really interesting voice!
I’d never write an article for you. You are an instigative investigator of interesting material…I get to react…that’s way more fun.
Chicken! (laughing)
The best we can do is what bin Laden doesn’t want… be kind to our fellow man.
Bin Laden is (or, hopefully, was!) a full-fledged radicalized extremist, a terrorist, in every sense of the word.
And yes, I agree that we should all be kinder to our fellow man. And by “we” I mean Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. 🙂
>…burn the Holy Qur’an on 11 September
Nothing, nothing, nothing good can come of this.
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” ~ Nelson Mandela
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” ~ Nelson Mandela
The “international” part of the so-called International Burn a Qur’an Day seems bent on inflaming the international community as well as American military and diplomacy efforts. More news.
Hey Leigh, thanks a lot for your note–I saw it just now. Very informative and interesting. Let me think about it for a while, and I will send you a reply shortly. Cheers JOsh
Another Floridian thought.
And another view.
“Florida Pastor in New York on 9/11: ‘Mission Accomplished, We Will Not Burn Koran‘”
Mission accomplished? My guess– book sales are up.