Female student who reported UA junior’s racist Tinder messages just received neo-Nazi hate mail
They’re addressed ‘Dear Trollop’ and ‘Dear Bimbo’
Hollins University student Emi Miller, 21, received neo-Nazi hate mail after she reported a University of Alabama student for sending racist and homophobic messages on Tinder earlier this month.
The postcards are handwritten, from a New York post office and have no return address. They include incredibly offensive and sexist language, and one includes a link to a neo-Nazi website. The handwriting looks like the cards could have been written by the same person.
The letters, which were actually sent directly to Hollins University, came after Miller shared screenshots of a conversation she had with UA junior Kyle Harcourt, 20, on Tinder, in which he repeatedly used racist slurs like the “n-word.” When she posted the photos and tagged the University of Alabama, the tweet quickly went viral.
Harcourt eventually issued an apology and is no longer an enrolled student at UA.
Following these events, Miller has received a few hateful messages on Twitter on Tumblr. She says she blocked most of those users, but it’s the postcards that bothered her the most.
They say horrible things like, “Dear Airhead, You are a great example of a brainwashed Stepford Wife, who is educated but has no wisdom. In a time when most young men are effeminate slackers, you take down a high achieving white man who spoke his mind. Too bad your mother wasn’t pro-choice.”
“Dear Trollop, You are the Benedict Arnold of 2017. Nobody will confide in an informant. Your life is over.”
“Dear Bimbo, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley Jr., Sirhan Sirhan. All losers – nobodies – the only reason they are known is because they attacked someone of stature. You have joined this group for eternity.”
Miller said, “I was a little shaken up. But after the initial shock kind of wore off I was more exasperated. In one letter, the writer addresses me as ‘trollop’ and I was just so DONE that all I could do was laugh because it was so weird. I got a tweet from another Nazi calling me a ‘wench’ and it felt kind of the same way. I guess after that I was just kind of emboldened and motivated in a kind of angry way.”
She spoke to her academic advisor about the letters, and despite all the negativity, Miller says she’s actually had tons of positive feedback as well.
“I’ve had AMAZING amounts of support from my classmates at Hollins and my academic advisor following the letters getting here, so I’m so grateful for that. My advisor, who is a communications professor…jokes about how I’m living a practical application of his Social Activism/Social Movement communication class.”
Miller immediately posted on Twitter after she received the letters.
“I’m not going to be intimidated by anyone into giving up on being an ally and working towards equality and justice, as kitschy as it sounds. I tweeted it out because these types of people feed on making people afraid. And even if I do feel unsafe and a little scared – and I do – I can’t publicly give them that satisfaction.”