And Speaking of Freedom of Speech . . .

“Laurie W.” of Glendale writes:

People like you, with your blind, do-good policies, have put an end to freedom of speech in this country. . . . The poem you so righteously commented on is a poem about REALITY, NOT RACISM. . . . It is the most BRILLIANT, HILARIOUS, REFRESHING AND TRUTHFUL POEM I have read in years. . . . People like you have destroyed the meaning of “humor.”. . . You are the one guilty of “racist stereotyping,” not the poem. . . . You are the one who, through your analysis, creates hate, hysteria and frustration in the minds of readers.

*

It’s nice to get mail.

It’s refreshing how, in this age of the telephone, some people still take a moment to sit down and offer their two cents’ worth. Or 31 cents’ worth, with postage.

Thanks to Assemblyman Pete Knight of Palmdale, I now have more than enough correspondence to offer the first of what promises to be a periodic feature. The best thing about printing selected letters isn’t that I get to edit the invective, but the fact that I get to have the last word.

Mail call has brought a variety of missives, from scholarly arguments defending the two-thirds ballot super-majority required to raise property taxes to anonymous scrawls more suitable to the stalls of a men’s room. My favorite correspondence so far was from Leila McDermott, a British subject who lives in Sylmar. She didn’t like my open letter to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber concerning Van Nuys High School’s tribulations after being refused the rights to perform an old Webber musical simply because of a professional revival in Hollywood. McDermott said I sounded like a “spoilt child” and accused me of “Brit-bashing.”

Imagine my pride. To have Brit-bashed without a single mention of the Royal Family.

“Laurie W.” wrote my second favorite letter. It seems that she doesn’t fully agree with my criticism of the infamous, illegal-immigrant-bashing verse that Assemblyman Knight distributed to his fellow pols. I’d rather not rehash the controversy over an anonymous poem that has already been quoted extensively in this newspaper and denounced even by Knight’s Republican political allies as racist garbage. But if I didn’t let Laurie W. have a little space, she might go on accusing me of putting an end to free speech.

Unfortunately, I have to wonder whether Laurie W. really wrote this. If the author had provided a phone number, I might be confident in using her full name. The 411 operator found no listed phone number. So how am I to know whether this letter is genuine or a fraud? What if the author was really Laurie W.’s worst enemy? What if the real Laurie W. is one of those bleeding hearts who volunteers in a legal clinic protecting the rights of Central American refugees who fled the right-wing death squads of U.S.-financed regimes in hopes of finding sanctuary in this land of freedom? What if the real Laurie W. has better taste in poetry?

Whatever. I now invite the author to consider yet another reader’s perspective.

Ronald M. Thomason of Lancaster writes:

I am a 48-year-old white peace officer for the County of Los Angeles. I have been a peace officer and a registered Republican for 25 years, after serving six years as a U.S. Marine. . . . I have lived in the Antelope Valley for the last nine of those years and consider myself somewhat qualified to comment on your remarks about Knight. . . . Pete Knight is a born leader.

I could not agree with you more that the poem Pete distributed . . . is very much racist. The point you miss is that Pete said it was sent to him anonymously and that it was distributed simply as an opinion of one of his constituents, not his own. Pete did make a mistake of saying it was amusing. . . . He has since apologized. . . . Can we please, now, go on?

And Thomason does go on, to make a point about “the billion dollars” a year Los Angeles County spends on illegal immigrants in terms of welfare, medical care, education, police and fire services. But the overall economic impact of illegal immigration is a highly contentious matter, a subject of dueling experts. It’s a matter that individuals, after considering the slippery data, tend to decide by their gut.

It’s obvious that this country, this state and Los Angeles have yet to reckon with the full impact of illegal immigration. It’s a phenomenon of the global economy that defies legislative solution. But, as Thomason recognizes, it’s hard to imagine racism serving a constructive purpose. By failing to see the offensiveness of this poem, Knight did a disservice to Thomason’s viewpoint and did a favor for those who cry “racism!” at the slightest suggestion that, golly, illegal immigration may be a problem.

Which brings us to the white man’s burden . . . of shame.

Carol Holst of Glendale waxes poetic:

We are the mighty White folks, who crossed the ocean blue

To colonize America and make our dreams come true

We shoved out the Native tribes that were spread across the lands

And if they didn’t bring us gold, we just cut off their hands. . . .

*

We wrote a bold Constitution declaring all men free

Except, of course, for Black folks we trapped in slavery

When we reached the Western shore, Latinos were everywhere

We took their lands and raised our flag and never had a care.

*

Now it’s getting pretty crowded and Latinos are coming back

Northern countries starve the South, but we’ll not be the ones to pack

We refuse minority status, so let’s just make a fuss

And maybe they won’t notice the illegal immigrants are us.

*

Yikes.

Holst acknowledges that her stereotyping of white folks is “unforgivable.” But, she adds: “I’m an Anglo who can’t bear the injustice my ethnic group is responsible for.” Alas, historians may see more truth in Holst’s words than in that other poem.

Even so, White Guilt, not unlike White Paranoia, can be awesome to behold.

That’s why I typed this entire article with my nose.

Holst’s verse made me feel so bad I chopped off my hands.