Back when I chaired Arisia, we banned a fellow for hateful language. I can't say more--even that is probably too much--but I hadn't heard from him since. Until Thursday, when he sent me a racist message on FaceBook.
Now, the man is entitled to his opinions. He's just not entitled to share them with me. I was willing to ignore him for 3.5 years, but this new message out of the blue stirred me to action. I've reported him to the police and his employer (he says on FB works for a place that has access to my personal information, or else I wouldn't have bothered). I doubt anything will come of reporting him to his employer--they didn't take my info, so I'm suspicious. What he's done isn't a crime (the Anti-Defamation League website is helpful), but I will not take this harassment lying down. Not again.
You see, when he first did this, I didn't make many waves. And he got off with a warning. Mostly because my reaction was very much that of a rape victim: was I to blame? Did I do something to provoke this? Also, as a person in a position of power, would it be abusing my power to complain? In retrospect, I wish I hadn't been so wimpy, because his subsequent actions caused a lot of other people pain. And there was shock, too, that is natural: do people really think this way? Act this way? We tend to think that most people are basically good and decent, so when faced with someone who isn't, we're paralyzed, not knowing what to do.
So here is my lesson to you: go down screaming. Don't let the bastards get away with it. Be righteously angry. I know I am. As the Hulk says, "You won't like me when I'm angry."