America's hierarchy of suffering

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Since Sept. 11, the US has used its victimhood to demand a monopoly on the right to feel and to inflict pain

By Gary Younge
THE GUARDIAN , NEW YORK
Thursday, Sep 23, 2004,Page 9


The tale of how I became a Nazi and my Nazi harasser became a Jew is as intriguing as it is instructive. Last November I wrote a column in The Guardian newspaper about a racist e-mail sent to me by an employee of an insurance company and my frustrations over the manner in which my grievance was handled. The man in question (a white, South African supporter of the British National party who complained of "undesirables flooding into Britain") was subsequently fired. His dismissal was not as a result of my column but because my original complaint had alerted the company to a previously unreported pattern of racist behavior on his part.

Of the numerous responses from the public I received, most were supportive but many were more abusive than the original message. One stood out. Incensed that something as "trivial" as racist abuse could lead to a man losing his job, one reader compared me to the person who betrayed Anne Frank. And so, through contorted metaphor and contemptuous logic, the harasser became the victim and the harassed was transformed into the perpetrator.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/09/23/2003204032

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1. the insane feel comfortable expressing themselves publicly now, thanks to

bush. "And so, through contorted metaphor and contemptuous logic, the harasser became the victim and the harassed was transformed into the perpetrator."