Editor,
I applaud you for having the gumption to place my fictional piece on the front page. You may not have foreseen the consequences, but I appreciate that you deemed my perspective worthy enough to be published in a conservative community, at times resistant to reflecting.
It was keen of you to see my work for what it was when you said, “I felt her message about Laguna’s embrace of someone that stands out amid the anti-Muslim fervor that followed the attacks provided a welcome mirror for the community.”
Unfortunately, OC lacks a strong literary community that places value on all forms of art (not just non-offensive oil and water paintings). Your publication is rare in making space for creative fictional stories. We are grateful that they have amused, entertained and perhaps even enlightened.
All fiction stems from truth and if veiled inside a story a reader finds morsels that alarm, sadden or please, then the writer has indeed succeeded. In this case, I am very satisfied knowing I conveyed emotional images that caused a stir among some readers. This is the true challenge and beauty of freedom of speech.
You carry a heavy burden of informing the public in an unbiased manner about who, what, why, where and when. Though this is the minimal duty of an ordinary newspaper, you have gone further and provoked. And if in this little town, closed off from the ugliness that plagues most of the world, you can make readers think, move, speak up and act, then the Laguna Beach Independent is extraordinary.
We are all guilty of being complacent and avoiding introspection. It’s easier to believe we don’t need to improve ourselves. It’s easier not to empathize with others. It’s easier to criticize those we don’t know.
It’s easier living here – than where violent reaction to cartoons is commonplace.
When Americans freely and fearlessly express their inner views – be they distasteful or unpopular – they are exercising their right to breathe life into the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Anita Razin, Laguna Beach
Why is the Indy putting fiction on the front page? This is a NEWSPAPER, not a creative writing class!
Anita Razin’s letter to the editor (“Intolerance to Free Speech Lives” Indy, Jan. 16) provides the best possible evidence her “short story” was as much political propaganda as fiction, and should have been denominated as such instead of appearing as non-ideological holiday literary fare.
Razin falls into her own trap, first claiming her writing was just fiction, as if that means she has no accountability for its moral content. At the same time Razin agrees with Indy’s editor that her “fiction” was a statement about post-9/11 anti-Muslim bias in our town and America.
But her letter to the editor is non-fiction, and shows Razin’s true colors. Using “we” at the same time she sets herself apart as the permanent outsider victimized by our intolerance, Razin again betrays disdain for “…this little town, closed off from the ugliness that plagues most of the world…guilty of being complacent and avoiding introspection…easier to believe we don’t need to improve ourselves…easier not to empathize with others.”
This closely resembles her “fiction” about our racial intolerance, which she portrays as the cause of intolerance for Islam after 9/11. Thus, the heroines in Razin’s cliché laden “fiction” dressed modestly like Muslim women instead of Laguna Beach party girls, chastened because 9/11 ended what she depicted as “American arrogance.”
Now in her non-fiction account of our town’s character flaws Razin tells us Laguna “…lacks a strong literary community that places value on all forms of art.” That’s why her critics misunderstand that her writing “veils” truth to “provoke,” that being “…the true challenge and beauty of freedom of speech.”
Being provocative does not require people to agree on what’s true, and people in Laguna Beach do not need to be schooled on freedom of speech and artistic expression, much less justice and humanitarianism. This town is full of people who have paid a high price serving people and defending political, social, economic and cultural freedom here and around the world.
Now she claims that critical response to her mixed metaphors and mixed messages makes her a victim of intolerant people in our town who, in her words, find it “easier to criticize those we don’t know.” Clearly, it is Razin who finds it easy to criticize people and an entire town she does not know. Yet, no one would dispute her right to do so.
Indeed, as expressed in her fiction and non-fiction, Razin’s ideas and feelings about being an outsider clearly are about what is in her heart and character, far more than the people who despite their human fallibility consistently represent the true heart and character of our town.
The Indy chose not to publish my letter to the Editor, so I am posting it here:
Free Speech Lives
Editor,
This is in response to the inaccurate and inappropriately titled letter to the editor “Intolerance to Free Speech Lives” written by Anita Razin in the Jan. 15th edition of the Indy. Since I don’t know whether the author penned the title or the Editor created the headline, my question is directed to both.
As the reader who responded to Ms. Razin’s original anti American bigoted writing, please inform me where any comment in my letter shows even a smidgeon of intolerance to the free speech rights of Ms. Razin?
I applaud Ms. Razin for coming out and admitting that her writing piece was clearly reflective of her “perspective”. My rebuttal of her anti-American and bigoted perspective was simply my perspective. That’s how free speech works under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Ms. Razin is absolutely free to spew her hate speech in fiction and non-fiction, as reflected by the Indy prominently publishing her work on the front page, but please spare the readers the arrogant self-absorbed narcissism of claiming “Intolerance to Free Speech…”, when others don’t share her perspective, voicing their own free speech.
The accurate and appropriate headline would have been “Free Speech Lives.”
That being said, fiction or non-fiction, has the Indy ever published anything anti-Muslim or anti-minority that even remotely compares to the clearly anti-American and bigoted perspective of the front page story “New Year’s 2001: A Short Story”?
A search of the Indy online does not reveal any such publications. Contrary to Ms. Razin’s submission, I suspect no such hate perspectives are submitted to the Indy, as Lagunans are not religious/racial hate mongers, or if some are, they at least self-censor. However, I also suspect that if such hate perspectives were submitted to the Indy, free speech would not live; editorial discretion/censorship would prevail, and I don’t take issue with that type of editorial discretion. But it’s ok to give front page status to liberal anti American bigoted hate speech?
In reviewing the letter thread evolved from Ms. Razin’s original story, it’s apparent there’s collaboration on the part of Ms Razin, the Editor, and Ms. Razin’s writing coach to defend each other. Editorial notes, slanted headlines, quotes from writing coach, quotes from Editor…
Why…perhaps second thoughts about writing and publishing hate speech?
Is such editorial collusion sound editorial ethics?