Raise the Hammer

jason & Dave K, my apologize – this is long one again, pour a drink, brace yourselves :-)

Dear Howard Elliot:

A lot of truths have already been written in this world for us to live a life of dignity and honour. We fail on most days to live such a life - only because we do not have the will or courage to search for these truths and apply it to our lives in spite of Google.

Hence we need to use lawyers to support our words – as we are unsure on most days of what and why we write.

As a (colored) immigrant who has done much for Hamilton, I have over the years, faced many incidents of closet-racism. The outcome of all such incidents were the same thing – Discrimination.

That is why Hamilton has had the dubious honour of having specialized organizations to battle this social evil.

Most immigrants in Hamilton have had to develop their own frame of reference from receiving years of hard knocks.

If it was not for their ability to verbalize such incidents, many more immigrants would have left by now. Having the courage to verbalize such incidents is the only way that we can collectively get rid of this most insidious of all crimes.

In the course of verbalizing such incidents, there occurs what scholars call - a strategy of defense which presupposes explicit or implicit accusations.

In such strategies (as seen here), there is a reversal that creeps in – where the victim of discrimination is made to face accusations of having used the “R” word - when non was used explicitly.

Your journalist and your paper have violated my human rights, by a direct act of discrimination committed in the most public manner. Rights which are clearly protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights, Canadian Human Rights Act, and Ontario's Human Rights Code.

The patent act of discrimination against me is: Your journalist in his columns of May 14, 2010, titled: “Di Ianni ponders run to reclaim mayor's seat”, consciously and in a pre-meditated act, demeaned my mayoral candidacy by publicly misrepresenting my work and background; and by his very sly use of wordings, connected me to another mayoral candidate in the same sentence, whom he chose to call a “Pot Advocate”.

Further, without offering a single shred of logical argument – in the same sentence, he announced to his nearly 225,000 readers, that this: “virtually gift-wraps a second four-year term” for the incumbent.

Through the deliberate choice of words and misleading association by proximity, your journalist directly attempted to marginalize my candidacy; and in my opinion did so to cause my candidacy harm and thereby unduly influence the outcome of this mayoral election.

He was clearly not interested in offering the residents of Hamilton an honest look into my candidacy, my background, my achievements or my platform – Even after having interviewed me personally over the phone, he consciously choose to not publish any facts about me.

Why did he choose to not publish the facts on me that he already had at hand? Why did he not entirely drop any reference to me, after he claimed that he had to change the story upon experiencing some breaking news, which had nothing to do with me directly?

The answers to any claims of being disparaged by me - lies somewhere in between your willful acts of discrimination against me – and my honest personal opinion of your journalist that was based on two -direct experiences- of his inexplicable behavior towards me – which was further reinforced by his most illogical and vicious attack on my character, in his most discriminatory article of June 3, 2010 – ostensibly claiming an affront for being accused as a racist – when no such explicit accusations were yet proven at the time of this being published.

If sufficient proof did not exist that he was trying to damage my candidacy in his first article – his second article slandering me clearly lays bare very publicly his direct intent of damaging my candidacy.

This second article too, completely fails to highlight my background and contributions to the city’s rebuilding efforts, instead he choose to boldly character assassinate me personally on the basis of a yet unproven purported affront.

The result of this most bizarre and unfair public marginalization is that my mayoral campaign now has to bear the consequences of the irreparable damage that has been done to my reputation among over 225,000 Hamilton residents not once, but twice.

The false and clearly negative impression of me, as presented by your journalist – will directly have an impact on the voting outcome of the mayoral election.

So, Howard – being the respectable and reasonable journalist that you are, where do you suggest we go from here?

1) You continue to use your newspaper to drum support around the bogey of 'Racist accusations', which you and your journalist have raised – in order to coverup your original act of discrimination and subsequent slander committed against me.

And you continue to intimidated the emerging new media in our city, with dire legal consequences in order to force them to remove the original evidence of my email message from the public eye – while you slandered me in your paper – freely referencing the original evidence, but clearly failing to show your readers in the same article, this evidence on which you claim to have built your arguments.

2) I pursue the biggest law suit that this country has ever seen against you and your journalist to defend my legal rights for being viciously slandered and publicly discriminated against in a mayoral campaign – and further seek legal redress for your willful interference in a municipal election process to manipulate its outcome – by your direct actions in marginalizing a registered mayoral candidate.

3) You publicly make a commitment to henceforth, never ever again damage a candidate’s reputation in any municipal election, without presenting incontrovertible facts to the public – and further, committing to never again using your newspaper to dabble in political jockeying of candidates. And henceforth committing your resources to showcase all candidates in this municipal election in a fair and equitable manner, with respect for their backgrounds whatever they may be – in order that the citizens of Hamilton can clearly and with good conscience make their own choices on Election Day.

4) You make a very serious attempt to rectify the deep damage that you have caused me personally and my candidacy in this municipal election.

Howard – 'threats' just as 'allusions' are double-edged swords.

If you are indeed interested in rebuilding this city with dignity and honour, you do need to restrain the use of these swords, and offer respect to all kinds and classes of people who collectively make our economy happen – which in the end enables newspapers to be bought every day, from which jobs are created, upon which careers are built and families raised.

Misuse of the power that these swords offer, is the result why MSM has got the reputation that it has.

What the new media in Hamilton offers is the self-correction of this unbridled power. You do realize that your actions almost damaged this ability.

Your media and even your new media enterprise (Hallmarks) continue to bear the fingerprints of the misuse of this power - with no self-correction mechanism in place. Is it any wonder that Fred’s reputation received such a low hit recently? Did he really deserve this? Did our city deserve this? Could the question have been framed differently?

Well Howard, I am really glad that you are here tonight. It is unfortunate that this incident brought you here, and hopefully you don’t become a stranger here.

Much good for the rebuilding of this city can come out of this "crossing of the line" between the old and the new media. This is a great night for Hamilton!

PS: You may want to read the copy of the email I sent Andrew Dreschel on Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 4:29 pm, which clearly explains to him as to what kind of a person I actually am. (This is just so that you do not spend a sleepless night or spoil your weekend on account of the various options presented above. They are mere allusions. We do have a city to rebuild.)

However, I do hope that you spend the weekend reading this (below), and passing it on to your journalists:

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Extract from the "The concept of Marginalization" by Aditya Anupkumar

The term “Marginalization” generally describes the overt actions or tendencies of human societies whereby those perceived as being without desirability or function are removed or excluded (i.e., are "marginalized"…) from the prevalent systems of protection and integration, so limiting their opportunities and means for survival.

The problem of how the media represents news and propagates views today is described by Jean Baudrillard in his essay, “Simulacra and Simulations”; conceptualizing the relation between perception and reality.

It would note, that the Media generally follows a pattern such as this:

“Whereas representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum.

These would be the successive phases of the image:

1) It is the reflection of a basic reality.

2) It masks and perverts a basic reality.

3) It masks the absence of a basic reality.

4) It bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.

In the first case, the image is a good appearance: the representation is of the order of sacrament (The “real” story).

In the second, it is an evil appearance: of the order of malefice (somewhat changed).

In the third, it plays at being an appearance (the story that is published): it is of the order of sorcery.

In the fourth, it is no longer in the order of appearance at all, but of simulation. (rumors, and “taught views”, as well as general misconceptions formed in the mind of the viewer)”

This sums up the progression of any story within the Media, and also shows how marginalization is increased (and its ebb or flow is consequently dependent upon its portrayal in the world of the Media)

Comment edited by Mahesh_P_Butani on 2010-06-05 00:51:38