Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has received some fierce feedback since unleashing his fury in letter form against Maryland House of Delegates member Emmett C. Burns Jr. via a Deadspin article.
In the letter, he insults the legislator with, admittedly, a hefty amount of obscenities, but he’s not apologizing for it. And why should he? The issue of human rights shouldn’t be censored. It hits home, hard, for many in our population, so why tone down the passion that it instills?
“If you’re turned off by the swearing and the scatological reference or a genital mashup, then you’re not looking at the content of the message,” he explained in a recent interview. “And the difference between my letter and Mr.Burns’ letter is that, yeah, while my letter on the surface may seem shocking, what Mr. Burns did with his words was absolutely a disgrace to the English language, because he’s trying to use the English language to oppress someone else.”
This letter went viral from its mature website source, but I’m willing to bet that if Kluwe hadn’t used such colorful choice of words, it would not have received the publicity that it had. Therefore, the issue of Burns’ bigoted statement would not have been spotlighted nearly as much.
That’s not to say we should dismiss any sense of respect toward the opposition, but if the fire is lit, don’t smother it out just to play nice. Kluwe reminded us of what we’re fighting against and that we should sometimes second guess before sugar coating the soapbox.
Photo: citypages.com
