It was a very strange feeling today to learn that Jerry Falwell had died. As a Christian he frustrated me. He had the public spotlight and his words were heard all over the world, and the words that came out of his mouth would be stapled onto the backs of every person that called them self a Christian. For the figure head of a mega church to say such hateful statements that contradict the loving message Jesus gave was appalling and frustrating. But what nearly trumped those feelings was the reaction of the online community to his death, more specifically the Digg community. I love digg.com. I am up to date with the front page stories and contribute through giving meaningful diggs (meaning I check out the post and don’t digg based on title or just because it’s my friend’s submission). Digg is how I found out about Falwell dying. I read the linked article and was thrown into a bit of shock that usually happens when an iconic person dies. I then went back to the digg submission because I was really interested to see what my fellow diggers were saying since he was such a controversial person. Instead of reading intelligent discourse I stumbled upon a wall of hate. Here is a typical quote from one of the hateful diggers:

“Fuck Jerry Falwell, too bad he didn’t die years earlier. Enjoy your time in hell, you racist, homophobic asshole. Hopefully someone runs a train on your corpse.”

emaze

This statement makes no sense to me. Homophobic and racist statements are inherently hateful, and I can understand revolting against hate, but to revolt against hate with hate is absurd. I am in no way trying to vouch for the stuff Jerry Falwell said but now I feel like I am in the same situation with the Digg community and these comments as I was in with the Christian community and Jerry Falwell; I have hateful words that I didn’t say stapled to my back through association. The parts of the Digg community that acted out like this should think before they post so they don’t look like ignorant contradictions.

Hateful Digg comments