DUers! Help me compose a letter to educate an ignorant, racist person, please?

[EmilyAnne]

My mother received a forward from an acquaintance with one of the most disgusting, racist lines.

Apparently, its been a favorite right wing forward for some time and led to the recent resignation of a GOPer in Florida.

It reads,
"I'm confused. How can 2,000,000 blacks get into Washington, DC in 1 day in sub zero temps when 200,000 couldn't get out of New Orleans in 85 degree temps with four days notice?"

My mother is outraged and sad that someone would actually think that it would be acceptable to send to my mother.
Interesting, considering that my mother is well known to be a devout Christian and was, until 2004, a Republican.
I can only assume, then, that the person who sent this email believes that a Republican Christian will automatically find this line to be humorous, true, acceptable or whatever.

My mother made the mistake of telling me about this email, but now refuses to tell me who sent it.
I assume its a relative or a member of her nutty church.
My mom occasionally sends out silly forwards featuring kitties or babies or poems about rainbows and, when doing so, mistakenly reveals each and every email address.
So, I told her that I am going to send a letter addressing this evil racist line to every person in her email ring under the assumption that the person who sent it will read it.

I want to bash the person, but I also want to educate them a bit. Maybe a link to a video about Katrina?
Does anyone have some ideas.

It may seem childish to do this, but I just can't let something like this go unaddressed. Its such evil bullshit and it needs to be exposed.
This kind of person may be incapable of ever feeling empathy for other human beings, but at the very least, they need to receive a verbal beat down reminding them of just how far they are from being a decent person.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. Ignorance is a chosen behavior.

No amount of education will change this person's mind. Save yourself the trouble.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Naw, it's hopeless. They're dying off. nt

[lpbk2713]

3. It ended this woman's career ...

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=145x11317


... and rightfully so.

[notadmblnd]

4. I usually "reply all" when I have messages like this in my in box too

so be prepared for the "I'm entirely innocent in this", or the "I don't even know who you are", and the "leave me alone" responses you will get from these people. But basically I tell them to take me off their mailing list because I don't associate with people who cling to their backwards thinking and racists attitudes.

One time, one of my mothers friends who had sent such shit, came up to me at a social gathering and apologized to me. She knew my husband was a black man, she also knew that we had a child together and that he had passed away. I realized that her apology was pretentious and she was embarrassed because I called her on it in front of her friends.

I wouldn't waste a lot of energy arguing with them, I find it a rare occurrence for a grown adult to change their views.

[RJ Connors]

5. I would focus my attention on getting your mother out of the environment

of her "nutty" church. It sounds like a fundamentalist joint and those places just aren't healthy for ones psychological well being.

[EmilyAnne]

7. Alas, she was born into it and my father preaches there!

I wrote about them a few weeks ago and how they are pro-gay marriage, pro-choice and liberal all the way these days. Its weird because I have no idea how they are able to reconcile their religious beliefs with their political ones. I am happy enough that they are the way they are, considering that they are from a rural part of Texas and were raised in an evangelical church. That is why I haven't asked too many pointed questions about just how open my father is at his politics at his church. I know the members knew he and Mom voted for Kerry and Obama. I also know that my father was "disfellowshipped" from in 2003, so his church is now completely autonomous. The members made a decision to remain with him, rather than oust him and remain in "fellowship" with other churches in their denomination.

Anyway, yes, I too was raised in this church and I am an atheist, so you and I agree on what the real problem here is. On a side note, as far as my parents' faith goes, when I was younger I would have very heated debates with them about the existence on God and really enjoyed backing them into a corner. At this point, considering how old they are and how many years and how much effort they have put into this thing, I think if they finally rejected their faith, they would have a pretty major existential crisis.

[izquierdista]

6. Simple answer

They trust in their government, proud in the Obama's case, misplaced when it was in Dubya's case.

Of course, these are the same people that complain that government is broken and then proceed to show us how bad.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

8. ...

these people believe that the only people who showed up in D.C. for the inauguration were "black." They want to believe that somehow, the only people who voted for Obama are "black."

I watched the inauguration and saw people of every race, age & color. The people sending this email are willfully ignorant and hateful.

[EmilyAnne]

9. Its definitely willful. I just can't believe that they aren't ashamed to announce it to the world.

[DoctorMyEyes]

10. How does 11 weeks get turned into 1 day?

First of all, Obama was elected in November - providing a bit more than "one day's notice" to those who wanted to attend his inauguration. So, that's some "fuzzy math". Secondly, the crowds in DC were made up of people of every race creed and color from every state and some foreign countries. They weren't all black people from NOLA. And thirdly - there were at least 13 public inauguration celebration events scheduled in the city of New Orleans, so I think it's safe to assume that the city wasn't empty on January 20th. Only a racist asshat would play so fast and loose with obvious facts in order to make such a moronically "profound" sort of "joke" about Katrina victims and the aftermath that's been one of the most shameful and tragic events in American history. Shame on anyone who is so ignorant to think that this "joke" was funny and/or worth retelling.

[EmilyAnne]

11. I wish there was a way to search out the very earliest appearance of this joke.

There should be means of putting search results in chronological order. Does that make sense? I'd love to find out where this bullshit comes from.