A Visit From Henry to RCAB (Round 1)

[The following comment was left by Henry Gómez in the previous thread. It is his first at RCAB (at least the first published under his own name). My answer will follow in short order. I wonder what would happen if I tried to publish my answer as a comment at Bababú? What a silly question. — MAT]

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Hey Manuel,

Let me ask you a serious question. What did I ever do to you to deserve for you to tell the most vile lies about me?

Is it because I didn't defend you when Val banned you from commenting at Babalu?

Or is it that I didn't care when you told me you were starting this blog?

Or perhaps it's the fact that I have completely ignored you except for the one time I called you a liar for, well, for lying?

I really want to know.

Are you really that insecure that the only way you feel good is by tearing someone else down?

Just curious.
4/15/2008 1:05 AM



Hello, Henry:

How can I be guilty of telling "the most vile lies" about you when all I do is simply quote your words, as I did in this [the previous] post. Let me suggest that it is you who write in haste and do not fully consider what it is that you are saying. In many cases I suspect (or hope) that it is the opposite of what you really mean. Of course, I can only deconstruct your words, not your intentions.

I have no personal animus towards you. I do not consider you an enemy. None of the reasons that you cite have influenced me against you in the least. I will confess that your refusal to say even one word on behalf of Elenita after I practically begged you did color my thinking about you and changed for the worse the good opinion that I had formed of you during the Martí Moonlighter Affaire, when my praise embarrassed you as my censure now seems to hurt you.

I never thought for one moment that anything I wrote about you re Babalú caused you hurt. Why would I? Your placid silence confirmed me in the opposite belief. I thought that it all just rolled off you and I admired you for that. At least you did not make a fool of yourself by trying to engage me, as did Val Prieto. In fact, you have on more than one occasion written about how personally flattering it is to you to have a blog (or several blogs, as you put it) dedicated to your writings (this is an exaggeration) and how it proves that you must have something important to say. So, excuse me, Henry, if I did not see your hurt feelings behind the smokescreen that you set up to conceal them.

On the one ocassion that you did address me directly on Cuban-American Pundits (never Babalú) you referred to me as "Jerkey" or "Jerkey boy," or some such infantile title, which, rather than annoy me, verified to me that you took my criticism in the right spirit (the spirit in which it was intended) and understood my humor even if you could not match it. Then, also, there were the blogs parodying RCAB which you and other Babalunians started to convey the impression that you took my blog as a "big joke." Well, apparently it was never a "joke" to you. Painful truths are rarely funny.

It is not you but your views that I often find objectionable and it is your views that I attack. Not on Babalú, of course, because no voices of dissent are allowed there as you have made quite clear on numerous occasions with less humility than you have shown in your comment.

Let me tell you a little secret: If Babalú stopped doing to others what it did to me — if it actually adopted for itself the democracy that it claims to want for Cuba — I would devote this blog to my thinking on Cuba exclusively and not to refuting yours. But so long as you continue to delete comments and whole threads because you want to limit or stifle debate, so long as you hold yourself and your other editors as above criticism, and so long as you continue to ban commenters because their political opinions don't jive with yours, there will be a need for a blog like mine to call you to account each and every time.

So here's my offer to you: Stop and I will stop.