I appreciate Mountain Xpress printing opinions and comments that don’t necessarily agree with the somewhat liberal slant of the publication. In reference to the Grand Hullabaloo over the gentleman who said that he hoped that Trump would bomb Mecca [“A Reason to Hope with Trump,” Dec. 28, Xpress], I applaud your printing that opinion and continue to support you not backing down in the face of some of your readers’ opposition.
I tend to the right politically and socially, personally, and I appreciate reading and learning other opinions other than my own. Sometimes, I leave an article thinking, “Hmmm. That’s interesting. I never thought of it that way.” Other times, I leave an article and think, “For real? People really think like that???”
Frankly, when I read the letter in question about Trump and Mecca, my first reaction was to feel sorry for the guy, then I felt a need to redouble my own efforts to be aware of this kind of hate, to make sure that people know that all right-leaning people do not adhere to this kind of outlook, and to make sure that I disagree with those on other parts of the spectrum with love, respect and a mind toward common ground.
I think that often people from both ends of the spectrum can tend to live in a mind-ghetto where they only see and hear opinions and viewpoints like theirs, since they read publications that only cater to their mindset and their friends tend to agree with them. So when Mountain Xpress runs an opinion that is very contrary to certain people’s mindsets, some folks sort of go into “OMG!! How dare you print this hate speech?”
Well, that’s sort of the point, right? It exists, it’s there, people really think like this, and telling Mountain Xpress to not print it and allow me to stay in my mind-ghetto does no one a good service. I trust that you guys won’t start printing totally off-the-wall neo-Nazi or KKK rhetoric, and I appreciate your discernment in printing the letter in question. It was an eye-opener to me. We have a lot of work to do, don’t we?
— Bob Cummings
Asheville
You need not worry as those who believe in Mecca will come bomb this nation. And it needs to happen. Merely because there’s a huge swath that are led around by emotions that assume others mean them no harm. And assume white males are the devil.