The “Shut Prerna Up” Campaign

I seriously wonder what some men are smoking sometimes.

Some (straight) men actually think they can email another straight man on my team–one of my friends nonetheless–and ask them to keep Prerna in control and expect him to react in an affirmative. Really? This is the most hilarious thing I have heard all year.

You know you are hitting some nerves as a blogger when you get told to “shut up” by a multi-million dollar coalition and other white male citizens. I am one of the unfortunate few who hits nerves quite a lot but the hateful and mean-spirited messages go to my friends. They never come to me directly with complaints. I think a friend of mine had a more appropriate thing to say about that last night: “COWARDS.”

The LGBT-Immigration summit debacle hosted by Four Freedoms Fund in New York last weekend was heavily tweeted by bloggers and can be seen on the Twitter hashtag #lgbtcir. No one really had anything good to say about the anti-equality Reform Immigration for America campaign. I was one of the first bloggers to actually hammer down what occurred at the summit, along with ways in which the coalition could make some improvements. Several other bloggers followed suit which is archived at the bottom of this post.

The criticism was not taken in stride by several people who hold personal vendettas against me and have threatened to work against me, publicly. One of my straight male friends who is based in DC was told by someone from the RI4A management team and another particular white male blogger something along the lines of “shut Prerna up” and “keep me in check.” I won’t even start with the misogyny of giving a straight male figure that directive. I do wonder if they meant it in terms of violating my freedom of speech or doing some physical damage. Either one is quite bad and well, cowardly.

To be honest, I am not surprised by this response. Were other queer or white bloggers threatened after the summit? I am sure no one sent a message to Mike Rogers from Outrage to tell him not to write anything even though he was the one who told Ali Noorani that “it seems to me that you [RI4A] needs to be pushed harder than Congress” while almost everyone in the room went “Amen.” No, lets try to tell the [loud] woman of color–the lowest hanging fruit–to shutup

I have a message for haters: Don’t tell my straight male friends to shut me up, which is just misogynistic and homophobic and says more about you than anyone else. Do feel free to send your threats directly to me. You have my email: prerna [at] dreamactivist.org . You can also CC the entire team at DreamActivist about how “Prerna makes you look bad” or “Prerna…” Whatever complaints you have, Do it openly–not by hiding in the shadows like some undocumented immigrant. Because that is just pitiful.

Show the world how so-called pro-migrant advocates who speak out against hate crimes and “silencing of migrants” are actually the ones spreading hatred and trying to do the silencing.

I am neither going to be silenced nor will I step back into the closet. Threats only fuel my ego and encourage me to work harder and succeed. I am going to continue standing up for ALL my communities and I will die doing it.

That’s what she said.

If anything does happen to me in the coming weeks, I doubt that pneumonia is completely to blame. Though in all seriousness, I have nowhere to go but up, up and away.