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Yesterday, we told you about Scottsdale gun-law author Alan Korwin, who claims to believe the word “birther” is a derogatory term “equivalent of the ‘N’ word.”
This claim somehow made it onto the websites of both the East Valley Tribune and Arizona Republic.
“‘Birther,’ used by the media with impunity, is a derogatory slur, the equivalent of the ‘N’ word used for another group to cast them as sub-human,” Korwin says. “You apply this new ‘N’ word to a huge group of politically-active Americans who’ve raised legitimate questions on a legitimate topic.”
When we noted to Korwin that he was equating a term for people who choose to be conspiracy theorists with an undoubtedly derogatory term for a race that got the short end of the stick through American history, he explained that his comparison was about the “terms,” not the “people” targeted with them.
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“‘Birther’ is used by the media to demean and denigrate skeptics, in a similar fashion as the ‘N’ word is used by the public to portray a group in an unfavorable light,” Korwin adds. “This is a common technique of left-leaning media, well documented, used when rational argument fails. I hope you would agree that name calling is hardly a valid journalistic technique. Swap ‘skeptic’ for ‘birther’ in any of those stories and see how differently they read.”
This morning’s question, as if we really have to ask: is “birther” the “new ‘N’ word”?
Cast your vote below:
