Long Beach Woman Speaks Out About Racist, Hate-Filled Letter Sent To Her Home
LONG BEACH (CBSLA) -- A Long Beach woman is speaking out Friday about a racist, rude, hate-filled letter she received at her home.
The letter was anonymous. It will filled with venom.
Michelle Dobard spoke to CBS2/KCAL9 reporter Rachel Kim about the offensive letter.
The anonymous letter attacks her appearance. It talks about her husband's medical issues. It makes light of her elderly parents and their medical conditions.
The letter tells her in no uncertain terms -- she is not welcome in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood she has called home for 14 years.
"This neighborhood is not suited for people like you, your parents, husband and your dog. Go and live where you people are supposed to live," Dobard says, reading from the letter.
The letter she recently received made her angry, and as Kim reports, far from the truth. For one thing, Dobard is a rocket scientist and highly-accomplished.
The letter first complained about her dog and barking. And then went in on her parents and husband.
"It is annoying and depressing to see your crippled parents and crippled husband who visits you all the time," the letter goes on to say.
Kim says it's a particularly cruel attack on Dobard's elderly parents who suffer from dementia and her husband, who is partially paralyzed and cannot speak after suffering a massive stroke.
That is one reason Dobard chose to speak out for them.
"Attacking people who can no longer defend themselves, that to me, was completely unacceptable," Dobard says.
The hater who wrote the letter also takes aim at Michelle's appearance, saying she looks like a homeless person. But the 58-year-old engineer says what pains her most are the words directed at those she loves most.
"We can't wait until your parents, husband and dog start naturally dropping like flies, just so we can get some peace," the letter continued.
Dobard has never had a hateful experience like this letter -- until now. But after she posted the letter on a community blog, she was glad to see she got a lot of support from her other neighbors.
"I need to share this with the community to let them know that there are people who think like this and it needs to be stopped," she explained to Kim.
Dobard also has something to say to the anonymous person behind the letter.
"Help me to understand what would possess you to say such racist and derogatory things because they just picked the wrong person to pick on."
Long Beach Police said the letter does not constitute a hate crime but they do keep track of incidents like this one just in case things like this continue or escalate.
The letter has also gotten the attention of a city councilman and the Human Relations Commission that is now working on organizing an anti-hate forum for the city.
