Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to Fresno Grizzlies video, laments her 'flood of death threats'
The Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies apologized Monday night for accidentally airing a propaganda video between games of a doubleheader that equated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with Kim Jong Un and Fidel Castro.
That apology apparently isn’t much consolation for Ocasio-Cortez, who took a moment Tuesday to explain on Twitter why incidents like the one in Fresno — which seem to happen so often with her — are harmful.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasts ‘hateful messages’
The video in question — which can be seen here — was aired as a Memorial Day tribute to fallen soldiers on Monday, featuring a speech from former President Ronald Reagan.
At one point, Reagan mentions “enemies of freedom” and the video begins showing pictures of various examples, including the North Korean dictator, former Cuban dictator and ... Ocasio-Cortez. A subsequent tweet from the Grizzlies implied that whoever selected the video to be aired didn’t watch it all the way through, and so here we are.
In response to the video, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted an explanation of how videos like the one the Grizzlies aired lead to death threats for her and her office. She mentioned Fox News as a frequent instigator of hateful messages her interns are forced to field.
What people don’t (maybe do) realize is when orgs air these hateful messages, my life changes bc of the flood of death threats they inspire.
I‘ve had mornings where I wake up & the 1st thing I do w/ my coffee is review photos of the men (it’s always men) who want to kill me. https://t.co/hiYbPghad7— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 28, 2019
I don’t even get to see all of them. Just the ones that have been flagged as particularly troubling.
It happens whenever Fox gets particularly aggressive + hateful, too. Young interns have to constantly hear hateful messages (far beyond disagreement) from ppl we don’t even rep.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 28, 2019
All of this is to say that words matter, and can have consequences for safety.
For those who believe in “free speech”: whose free speech do you believe in?
Bc some folks using free speech to defend racism are also supporting folks passing laws to allow running over protesters.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 28, 2019
For their part, the Grizzlies released a statement on Twitter and said they “unconditionally apologize” to Ocasio-Cortez, calling the video a mistake and saying it won’t happen again.
That didn’t stop a simple lineup tweet from the Grizzlies on Tuesday from being inundated with replies from Ocasio-Cortez supporters.
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