Re: Willow Palin's homophobic Facebook rant

The word gay gets used a lot by kids (that's so gay) just to mean dumb or
lame.  I just ignore it, and have for years.

I do find some irony that the GLBT community has taken offense at the misuse
of a word that they um...misuse, since they co-opted the real meaning of gay
years ago.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Peter Chattaway
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 10:42 PM
To: Daniel Amos off-topic listserver
Subject: [DADL-OT] Willow Palin's homophobic Facebook rant

I must admit I'm surprised to hear that Palin lets her daughters use
Facebook.  Remember how Bristol's friends and/or boyfriend had to shut down
their MySpace pages when John McCain named Palin his running mate, and
people began snooping around for evidence that might suggest Bristol, rather
than Sarah, was Trig's mother?

- - -

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/sarah_palin/index.html?story=%2Fmwt%2Ffea
ture%2F2010%2F11%2F17%2Fwillow_palin_facebook_rant

The 16-year-old causes an uproar by using anti-gay slurs. But what's really
shocking is how normal it is

Wednesday, Nov 17, 2010 11:05 ET
By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Those darn Palin girls. There's Bristol, abstinence "advocate" and "Dancing
With the Stars" juggernaut. There's Piper, the sullen tween breakout hit of
"Sarah Palin's Alaska."  And in between, there's Willow. The 16-year-old has
already had her scrapes with bad publicity this year, after allegedly going
all "Risky Business" and partying to the tune of several thousand dollars'
worth of damages in a nearby empty house.  She's also already distinguished
herself on "Sarah Palin's Alaska" as the cast member most likely to roll her
eyes in disgust when her mom asks her to clean up after herself. She is
also, apparently, like an unfortunate number of other teens around the land,
a homophobic bully who can't spell.

As TMZ reported late Tuesday, Miss Palin, who for privacy reasons uses a
different last name on Facebook, recently took umbrage with a schoolmate
named Tre who critiqued her family's new TLC series with the devastating
status update salvo, "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing so hard right now." It
was Willow's sis Bristol who first shot back, posting, "You're a typical
shit talker. Talking shit cause you have nothing else going for you. Just
like you pretended you didn't know what 'Dancing with the Stars' was."
That's right, Bristol played the 'DWTS' card. Oh, it was ON. Willow then
jumped into the fray, informing the Facebook crowd, "Don't watch it, dumb
shit," and adding to one gentleman in particular, "And Matt. Your effin fat
as hell. Stfu."

It didn't end there, of course -- Facebook rants never do. Willow was soon
adding, "Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are, But what I've seen
pictures of, your disgusting ... My sister had a kid and is still hot" and
mentioning, by the way, "Tre stfu. Your such a faggot."

There was more back and forth involving the Palin girls raging about their
"dumbass" haters "talking shit" about their family and the appropriateness
of classmates criticizing the show knowing the girls would see it. Or, as a
young man named Zack explained, "That would be like me calling the Cosby
show a bunch of nigger filled faggotry. You have a right to free speech but
that doesn't mean you should use it." Thanks for your perspective there,
Zack. But there were other tangent-infused gems as well, like when one user
pointed out that "I bet half of you here will have done time by the time the
first high school reunion comes around!" She was greeted, by the way, with
"Shutup, just because you got away with running a meth lab you think your
all badass." Apparently Obama's educational Race to the Top has thus far
eluded the high schools of Wasilla.

The whole exchange -- which goes on and on longer than a bad "SNL" sketch --
is as chock full of rambling invective as Mercedes Johnston's blog. Most of
it's of the "No YOU shut up" variety, but I have to give props to some guy
named Matt for his stingingly original indictment of Bristol: "You know its
bad when you take a picture with the Situation and your the grenade."

The media today has been agog over the dust-up, and naturally questioning
whether that was really Willow herself calling "faggot" on another kid
because "you guys are jealous of my families success."[sic] But Bristol's
early Wednesday post on her official FB page that "Willow and I shouldn't
have reacted to negative comments about our family. We apologize. On a nicer
note, thank you for supporting the great competition in Dancing with the
Stars!" certainly appears to confirm that the meltdown was real.

There's a lot wrong with how it all went down between Willow, Bristol and
their assorted FB cohorts. Willow, in particular, has revealed herself as a
kid whose sense of entitlement is matched only by her poor word choices.
Apparently Spirit Day hasn't come to Wasilla either.

It doesn't help Sarah Palin's image to have a child who is so very
comfortable doing the offensive "You're so gay" routine, or, as Willow would
put it, "Your so gay." Her mother, Sarah, isn't exactly famed for her
progressive views on gay and lesbian rights, either. But while the Palin
parents surely bear a great deal of responsibility for not enlightening
their daughter about throwing around cheap, offensive terms when kids her
age are dying over this stuff, it's worth giving the whole conversational
thread a read to see where Willow may have picked up her debating  skills.

It's a letter from America's youth, a stunning example of shortsighted
thinking, easily inflamed emotions, and appalling grammar. This is the
environment in which Willow Palin -- and plenty of other kids -- are living
and breathing and dropping F-bombs. It's not at all right, but it doesn't
happen in a vacuum. And I can't help suspecting that these kinds of ugly
exchanges are going on between teens on Facebook all the live-long day, all
over this great land of ours, where a kid can say "faggot" and no one will
come forward to say that's not acceptable.

There aren't too many American teens whose mother is a high-profile
political figure with a TV show. But there are plenty getting into online
fights over their own "dumbass" stuff all the time. And what makes Willow's
outburst shocking isn't that she's so unique. It's that, in reading the
other comments, it's clear that her appalling ignorance and insensitivity
are still so very commonplace. 

    * Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of
"Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her
on Twitter: http://twitter.com/embeedub More Mary Elizabeth Williams


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