Racist Hate Mail
Saw this story in the AP news feed:
Yankees star Derek Jeter received a threatening letter that reportedly warned he’d be “shot or set on fire” if he didn’t stop dating white women.
The FBI is investigating “racially threatening letters to Jeter and others across the country,” special agent Scott Wilson said Monday by phone from Cleveland. He declined to comment further.
Nothing too surprising there. Some good old boy doesn’t want the bi-racial Jeter dating white women, because only white men should be dating white women, right?
And then I read on.
The Daily News reported that the hate mail to the Yankees’ 31-year-old captain called him a “traitor to his race” for dating white women. It warned him “to stop or he’ll be shot or set on fire,” the paper said in Monday editions, quoting an unidentified law enforcement source.
Wait a second… the racism in the letter isn’t against Jeter… it’s against the white women that Jeter has been dating! There is another surprise: the NYPD Hate Crimes unit investigated the matter. Now, granted, the threats were against Jeter, but the racism that inspired the letter is that of a black person against whites.
Are we finally getting to the point where racism is viewed simply as racism, regardless of who is perpetrating it? I see no mention of “reverse” racism, and I’m fairly sure that the NYPD doesn’t have a “reverse” hate crimes department.
