Hate Poetry: A film by Myles Tweedie

With the advent of comment boards, journalists around the world have had to learn how to deal with ubiquitous hate mail. While most simply ignore the nasty comments, a group of German journalists has decided to combat racially instigated hate mail with an unlikely weapon: humor.

“There are days when I don’t get any hate mail at all, but then there are days when I get 500 abusive messages,” says journalist Mohamed Amjahid, who participates in Hate Poetry–a show in which German journalists with Arab sounding names read aloud the racist letters they receive.

Journalist Ebru Tasdemir, another hate poetry participant, says that all that is needed to become a target is a foreign sounding name.

“The journalists on stage are German, but they get this hate mail because they get categorized as being Turkish, Arab, Muslim, Kurdish, or whatever,” she says.

The group hopes that throwing these private messages onto the public sphere, they’ll be able start a conversation on racism in Germany, and will show that not only are the comments laughable, but also that they will not stop them from doing their job.

---