For 3 years I worked in a public-facing position in human rights. During that time I was privy to the unvarnished thoughts of men whose rage at even minor inconveniences is startling at best and terrifying at worst.
The first time I received a death threat was in 2019. I had just placed a story in the Wall Street Journal about new legal enforcement guidance for a long-existing New York City Law surrounding immigration and citizenship status. The guidance — basically a legalese explainer meant to clarify specific enforcement practices and interpretation of the law — simply restated in clear terms that harassment and discrimination based on one’s nationality, citizenship status, or immigration status was still illegal. As it had been, since the 1980’s. The guidance was issued at a time when the term “immigrant” was batted around as a dirty word by the former Trump administration, and used as a cudgel to prevent communities of color from accessing resources and basic human rights. A rise in reports of discrimination and targeted attacks against people perceived to be “not from here” signaled a reminder about the law was necessary. The reaction was swift, and it was very, very angry.
Naturally, as things go, nearly every news outlet that syndicated the WSJ story got something wrong about the guidance, which is understandable given the legal complexity of such a document. Most, I assume, didn’t read it through. But right-wing media in particular — specifically the Daily Wire, Breitbart, and Fox News — erroneously reported, perhaps intentionally, that people would face fines of $250k if they called someone an “illegal immigrant” or “an illegal.” While there is language in the guidance that indicates that using such terms to deny services or housing, to intimidate, harass, or threaten people based on their perceived national origin, is considered in establishing a person’s intent when they are being investigated for a violation of the law, there was nothing that said a quarter-million dollar fine was immediately issued for speaking the term out loud. Any anyone who looked at the history of the enforcement of the NYC Human Rights Law would have seen that the maximum penalty of $250k had only ever been issued a few times in the past 40 years*. None of that mattered though, as was quickly made apparent.
Clickbait headlines of “THOUGHT POLICE FINE YOU $250K FOR SAYING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT” and “NEW YORK CITY WILL FINE YOU FOR CALLING ILLEGALS WHAT THEY ARE, WHAT’S NEXT?” A real example from The Heritage Foundation yelps “New York City Will Fine You for Saying “Illegal Alien.” That’s an Assault on the Constitution.” Any constitutional lawyer who read the guidance would tell you that in certain circumstances, much like the ones in which the law actually applies — housing, employment, and public accommodations — that freedom of speech can be mitigated when it comes to enforcement of laws. For instance, I cannot walk around telling my coworkers “nice tits” because that is sexual harassment, which supersedes my first amendment rights at work. We make this tradeoff hundreds of times throughout our lives in order to live in a functioning (barely) society. This, also did not matter to the detractors.
When Fox News published their pearl-clutching diatribe on the horrors of not harassing people based on whether you think they were born in the US, they linked to a tweet that included my phone number in it. The tweet was a copy of a press release, and right at the top was my name and phone number. Almost everything in media is a deliberate choice, and I do not give Fox the benefit of the doubt that they accidentally included my number in their article. Within minutes of that story appearing online the calls to my cell phone began. They did not subside for over a year.
The calls came in from every corner of the US — from Alaska to Alabama. I answered the first few, thinking that they were reporters calling for information. After the 3rd incredibly unhinged angry call, however, I recognized that one of the outlets must have published my number. I searched my name online and it was the first hit — the SEO image was that of the press release. I sent all calls to voicemail and soon it was full. I had to listen to them all to determine if there were actual threats on my life, or those of my colleagues. While there were people who threatened violence, rape, and death, none of them seemed very credible. No one who called me was from New York City — the only place where the law applied. Most were from red states, calling to tell me they hated me, hated my city, and in their most colorful language, how much they hated the law that prohibited berating people based on immigration status.
These calls all had one thing in common — they were all made by men. Only three women called me, and although they were clearly enraged by the law, none of them spewed the vitriol or graphic threats that the men did. One of the women punctuated her message with “BITCH!,” but it came as an afterthought rather than the thesis. Some of the men that called me threatened me personally, some threatened my workplace, some threatened “the illegals” and some threatened NYC in general. Their rage was palpable, I could hear them frothing at the mouth, eyes bulging and veins popping, all over a law that affected them in no way whatsoever. And even if it did, is a law that tell you to be less of a piece of shit something worth getting this worked up over? Did these men need so badly to threaten, harass and intimidate perceived outsiders in their daily lives that this city ordinance was compromising their entire identities?
Apparently, yes.
The majority of the callers were presumably (and some self-identified) cishet white men, with maybe 5% of callers being women, queer people, and people of color. Had I been able to neutrally observe this situation maybe I could have compiled some data on which demographic levied the most vile threats, but I was a bit startled and taken aback at the onslaught of violent threats to my life, my person, and my vagina, and so the best I can do is say, it was mostly cisgender straight white men, and they were not ok.
The barrage continued at a steady clip for about two weeks, eventually trailing off to a few calls a week, until, 3 years later, just a few per month, and half of the more recent complaints were that the vaccine is poisoning people with 5G. I stopped reporting them altogether unless a clear threat was made**. I think about them quite a bit though. I try to put myself through the paces — what would work me up into such a lather that I seek out people in states I have never been to in order to threaten to kill them, and I have yet to come up with any answer. No person utilizing the tools of logic and critical thinking would behave in such a manner. Which in turn indicates that all these men, these angry, performatively masculine men, are not utilizing logic and critical thinking. How are they making daily decisions? Gut feeling? Seeing things that are familiar to them, say, a man in the oval office who bellows all the thoughts they were shamed into containing to meetings of like-minded men in their basements? How are their brains operating? Is it just a constant angry stream of consciousness that only gets expressed in threats and hate? What do they gain from screaming at a stranger? Are their lives so painfully constricted that the only time they hit the release valve is after Fox News provides the phone number of someone to blame for their anger? Do they not jerk off?
This experience fundamentally changed my view of men in America. I understand much more clearly the inherent racism in our society and the violent backlash to challenging white supremacy. I view white men as volatile time bombs with hair triggers that can be set off at any moment without warning. Violence is all they know, and that has created in them a thousand monsters killed only by love for themselves. And until they can learn that, they will never be OK.
*After this was written the NYC Commission on Human Rights fined Fox News $1 Million for 4 separate violations of the NYC Human Rights Law.
**During my last 2 weeks of employment at the NYC Commission on Human Rights I received a mass shooting threat for which the NYPD refused to make a report. I had to self-report it to the FBI. Hope they looked into it!
