| Subject: SPLC, McCarty, McClarty, and McCain |
| From: Jonathan Farley <lattice.theory@gmail.com> |
| Date: 10/7/10, 18:44 |
| To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Yeah, I told my mother to stop sending the SPLC money. As I wrote in my email to SPLC's Mark Potok, the lawsuit the United Daughters of the Confederacy won was used as a precedent in another case, and perhaps if the SPLC had focused on Robert Stacy McCain then, his partner would not have been allowed to collaborate with Sarah Palin on her best-selling book, and he himself would not have been allowed to interview Todd Palin. The SPLC's not going for the jugular allowed the enemy to regroup.
My brother has been busy working but I told him to get in touch with you.
Your book is done, but in case you'd like more background to the Vanderbilt story:
On p. 194, line 4 you write that I forwarded the threats to the university. This sentence can stand, but here is what happened, as I remember it: I was inundated with attacks, both threats and attacks in the media. I was trying to get other people to help but to no avail. I forwarded the threats to the Nashville police and to the Tennessean newspaper. In one of the articles where the Tennessean libels me (they quote someone saying that I required "forced psychiatric hospitalization" or something like that), they point out that I made the claim that I have received threats in the print version of the paper; in the on-line version they corrected this to say that they have seen the threats. I also sent copies of the threats to Vanderbilt University's student newspaper, "The Hustler," which published part of one of the threats. But this is a Vanderbilt University organ. The Vanderbilt University Register, which is an official publication of Vanderbilt wrtitten by paid staff, also wrote about the attack on me where people discuss the threats made against me.
And of course, Gee himself received a threat as the Tennessean article I sent you indicated, and as Gee himself reported in that book. I heard through the grapevine that McCarty himself had received a threat.
More than that, two days after the publication of my essay, the Klan supporters had started emailing the chair of my department. There was a website that I can no longer find (it was taken down two or three years ago) with the header "UDC Attack in Tennessee", written I believe by a Mrs. Siegel, that told people to write the math department chairman, Mike Mihalik, and this website explicitly defended the Ku Klux Klan, not just the statue. It was on the sierratimes website if that helps you find it.
I told Mihalik to ignore the email messages, or better yet, to forward them to me. He said he would do neither, but he would forward the messages to the dean, who would place them in my file and they would be used the way student complaints against me were used, Mihalik said. I was at that time coming up for tenure. The dean at this time was, I believe, the same McCarty.
So McCarty certainly did know that the threats were not simply "claims".
Now, to go over McCain's latest attack:
Deceitfully written as always. He employs the classic right-wing approach of making it seem as if only one person has a problem with him, not a group of people. There is no mention of you, or Little Green Footballs, or Rachel Maddow (who called him a "white suprmacist") or the SPLC. Just Jonathan Farley. Indeed, he personalizes the title to emphasize this.
I may have written him an email this summer---probably the only one in 8 years---and I think I did email someone with a pro-McCain website, but McCain tries to make it seem as if I had written him and that this was news. The caption on the photo is of course a lie. I am not a Marxist, communist, or even a socialist, never have been. Che Guevara is a hero, but I stated that in exactly one place, a sentence where I listed four of my heroes in a row: Jesus, Hannibal, Frantz Fanon, and Che Guevara. So to call me a communist based on this is the same as calling me a Christian. But the caption doesn't say "Christian mathematician." (Nor am I a Christian.)
In the next paragraph he uses the right-wing tactic of implying that his target is lying. Now, my being tenured is, as you would say, a verifiable fact.
Later, he gets his facts wrong when he says I ran against a popular Democratic congressman. Congressman Bob Clement (D) decided not to seek reelection and so there was an open seat.
The classic tactic of the neo-Confederates in polite company is to make it seem as if race has nothing to do with their wants. So now McCain is trying to claim Vanderbilt didn't like me because of the Che photo. That Che photo was taken in 2000 and was in Ebony Magazine in 2000 or 2001 and on my website since 2000. (In fact, I had bought the Che banner in France in 1999 I think, where it was packaged and sold like GI Joe dolls.) The Chelsea essay was published in 2001.
The Confederacy doesn't even make an appearance in his essay except in the clip from his Washington Times story.
I do not know if he has faithfully reproduced that article, but if we look at it, we see: The Tim Chavez quote was dishonest. Because Chavez was quoting a man from *before* the time I had written the essay. That man was responding to this press release:
I had told Scott McClarty, racist Green Party Media Coordinator, that I didn't want to be quoted in this press release, because then the media would just pick my name out. And that's what The Tennessean did: rather than state that the Green Party had condemned the Confederacy, it reported that Jonathan Farley had. (Note the right-wing tactic of making it seem as if only one person dislikes them in use again.) But then after I wrote the essay, Chavez reprinted the quote to make it seem as if the man had responded to my essay.
Then the quotations were taken from an email message I never confirmed or denied writing (not that I disagreed with them!), thus underscoring the lack of journalistic integrity on the part of The Tennessean and of course McCain. McCain gets facts wrong about my parents--the same mistake made by the Council of Conservative Citizens, coincidentally! Nor was I "politically active" since moving from Berkeley in 1997. (Jacob Grier tried to belittle me by calling me a "perennial candidate," even though I had never run for office before.) The Vanderbilt spokesman's comments were great, because instead of saying, "No comment," or saying, "We have no position on Professor Farley's comments," he insists only that they do *not* support my essay---thus hanging me out to dry. At no point did Vanderbilt say, "We will not tolerate a member of our community being threatened."
Regards,
Jonathan
On 6 October 2010 13:00, Barrett Brown
<barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
This is pretty ironic in light of the organization's failure to stick up for you.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Richard Cohen <splc@newsletter.splcenter.org>
Date: Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 12:57 PM
Subject: Help Put an End to Bullying
To:
barriticus@gmail.com
![Southern Poverty Law Center]() |
|
October 6, 2010
Dear Friend,
As you probably saw in the news recently, Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi jumped off a bridge after his roommate surreptitiously broadcast online an intimate encounter between Tyler and another man.
Tragically, Tyler's death was just one of a number of suicides committed in recent weeks by teens who were harassed by their classmates because they were gay or perceived to be gay.
In Texas, for example, 13-year-old Asher Brown shot himself after enduring relentless taunting at his middle school. In California, 13-year-old Seth Walsh hanged himself when he couldn't take the bullying any longer ― as did Billy Lucas, 15, in Indiana.
This is just the toll from September ― and only the suicides that made headlines.
Thankfully, the crisis of anti-gay bullying is now getting national attention.
But putting a stop to it is another matter. Through our renowned Teaching Tolerance project, we've launched a major campaign to combat anti-gay bullying in our schools.
Just last night in Washington, D.C., we premiered an important new documentary film ― Bullied: A School, a Student and a Case that Made History ― that will be shown this fall in thousands of schools and communities across America. This powerful film chronicles the story of a Wisconsin student who stood up to his tormentors and won a landmark federal court decision holding that school officials could be held accountable for not stopping the harassment and abuse of gay students.
Our film, along with its viewer's guide, is designed for both classroom use and teacher professional development. We're making it available ― free of charge ― to every school in America.
Unfortunately, organizations like Focus on the Family are pushing schools to ignore this crisis. They say that schools should remain "neutral" and not mention gay and lesbian students in their bullying policies.
But history teaches us that this is the wrong approach. As Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim."
We know nothing will change, and thousands of children will continue to suffer violence and humiliation, until schools confront the problem head on. We need every school in America to adopt a strong anti-bullying policy that specifically protects gay students. No child should ever feel unsafe at school.
You can help.
Please talk to educators in your community to see whether your schools have adopted policies to prevent anti-gay bullying. If not, urge them to do so immediately. And urge them to order a free copy of Bullied for their school. Your action could save lives and help prevent families from being shattered by a child's suicide.
Thank you for supporting our work. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of children who are suffering from bigotry and injustice. We can help make our schools become places where all children are safe and have equal opportunities to learn.
![]()
Make a gift today and help support our work for justice and tolerance.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and ask your friends to join our cause.
Take advantage of corporate matching — contact your employer's HR department to see if they will match your contributions to SPLC.
We welcome your feedback.
Contact us online.
Or by mail:
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
If you no longer wish to receive e-mails from us, please send an e-mail to: unsub_center-ctg0aib6yaae2v2q3xv2qjgkzkt5am2q@newsletter.splcenter.org
![]() | |
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302