I think it was a Tuesday morning when I wrote it. Sitting down at a local cafe to drink a much-needed coffee, I was sleepy and way behind in work, so to procrastinate I checked in with Facebook (as usual.) There I noticed a post that a new Miss America had been named. Nina Davuluri was a strikingly beautiful woman of Indian descent, but the headlines on the post talked about a landslide of racist tweets against her, not congratulations for her new crown. I clicked on the link and read a few of them and was appalled. They called her an Arab, a terrorist, a Muslim with Al Qaeda, all factually inaccurate, of course. They dehumanized her with scathing words and lamented her contribution to the demise of America solely because her parents were immigrants and she did not have white skin.
It made me mad. I don't really know else to say it, but something rose up that called for me to defend her. What crime had she committed? Why was she being attacked so viscously? Newly crowned, she couldn’t defend herself, or even acknowledge the social media lynch mob that had formed around her. She had to remain silent but I did not.
So I put my work aside, ordered another coffee, and settled in to write something, a satiric list of advice for those cowardly Twitter racists, just so there would be at least one person standing up for her. It took me most of the morning to write, I sent it around noon, and then completely forgot about it. It was a wise-assed rant called "30 Tips to being a better racist on Twitter."
I never expected what happened next...
The blog blew up. I mean it really hit big, shared via Facebook, Twitter, and online like wildfire all over world. Throughout the day I marveled as readers visited my blog site and messaged me with praise, not because the writing was anything special (it even had a few typos like most of my rushed work,) but what it stood for: the universal sentiment that we can overcome fear, hatred, and small minded thinking, instead coming together as brothers and sisters in the same world family.
The blog was picked up and published by Clutch Magazine, thanks to my friend Yesha who writes there, and I became the first Caucasian contributor to their magazine. It later was linked to an article about racism in sports on CBS.
A few days later when things quieted down, days spent with the nonstop well wishes of support from new friends all over the globe – India, Africa, South America, Canada, Europe, on and on, and even in Nina’s home town, people of every age, color, creed, and religion you could imagine, the blog post had tallied well over 25,000 hits and 176,841 reads via Clutch Magazine, bringing the total hits to over 200,000. To put it in perspective, on a good day 500 people read everything I’ve ever written online! Yet almost a quarter of a million people had read my humble little blog because it disguised a message of hope: That we are one.
If I never receive any accolades in my writing career, if I never make a dollar, it will be okay because I'll be able to look back on the butterfly effect of this little blog and smile. People want kindness. They thirst for compassion. We want to believe the world we live in can sometimes be a good place. And together, we made it so.
Thank you for that.
Here is a snapshot of just a fraction of the responses:
It made me mad. I don't really know else to say it, but something rose up that called for me to defend her. What crime had she committed? Why was she being attacked so viscously? Newly crowned, she couldn’t defend herself, or even acknowledge the social media lynch mob that had formed around her. She had to remain silent but I did not.
So I put my work aside, ordered another coffee, and settled in to write something, a satiric list of advice for those cowardly Twitter racists, just so there would be at least one person standing up for her. It took me most of the morning to write, I sent it around noon, and then completely forgot about it. It was a wise-assed rant called "30 Tips to being a better racist on Twitter."
I never expected what happened next...
The blog blew up. I mean it really hit big, shared via Facebook, Twitter, and online like wildfire all over world. Throughout the day I marveled as readers visited my blog site and messaged me with praise, not because the writing was anything special (it even had a few typos like most of my rushed work,) but what it stood for: the universal sentiment that we can overcome fear, hatred, and small minded thinking, instead coming together as brothers and sisters in the same world family.
The blog was picked up and published by Clutch Magazine, thanks to my friend Yesha who writes there, and I became the first Caucasian contributor to their magazine. It later was linked to an article about racism in sports on CBS.
A few days later when things quieted down, days spent with the nonstop well wishes of support from new friends all over the globe – India, Africa, South America, Canada, Europe, on and on, and even in Nina’s home town, people of every age, color, creed, and religion you could imagine, the blog post had tallied well over 25,000 hits and 176,841 reads via Clutch Magazine, bringing the total hits to over 200,000. To put it in perspective, on a good day 500 people read everything I’ve ever written online! Yet almost a quarter of a million people had read my humble little blog because it disguised a message of hope: That we are one.
If I never receive any accolades in my writing career, if I never make a dollar, it will be okay because I'll be able to look back on the butterfly effect of this little blog and smile. People want kindness. They thirst for compassion. We want to believe the world we live in can sometimes be a good place. And together, we made it so.
Thank you for that.
Here is a snapshot of just a fraction of the responses:
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