full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Özlem Cekic: Why I have coffee with people who send me hate mail

Unscramble the Blue Letters


My inbox is full of hate mails and pesnaorl abuse and has been for yares. In 2010, I started answering those mials and suggesting to the writer that we might meet for coffee and a chat. I have had hundreds of encounters. They have tughat me something important that I want to share with you.

I was born in Turkey from Kurdish parents and we moved to Denmark when I was a young child. In 2007, I ran for a seat in the Danish parliament as one of the first wemon with a moiirnty bocgukanrd. I was elected, but I soon found out that not everyone was happy about it as I had to quickly get used to finding hate messages in my inbox. Those emalis would begin with something like this: "What's a raghead like you doing in our parliament?" I never answered. I'd just delete the emails. I just thought that the sedenrs and I had nothing in common. They didn't understand me, and I didn't understand them. Then one day, one of my colleagues in the parliament said that I should save the hate mails. "When something happens to you, it will give the police a lead."

Open Cloze


My inbox is full of hate mails and ________ abuse and has been for _____. In 2010, I started answering those _____ and suggesting to the writer that we might meet for coffee and a chat. I have had hundreds of encounters. They have ______ me something important that I want to share with you.

I was born in Turkey from Kurdish parents and we moved to Denmark when I was a young child. In 2007, I ran for a seat in the Danish parliament as one of the first _____ with a ________ __________. I was elected, but I soon found out that not everyone was happy about it as I had to quickly get used to finding hate messages in my inbox. Those ______ would begin with something like this: "What's a raghead like you doing in our parliament?" I never answered. I'd just delete the emails. I just thought that the _______ and I had nothing in common. They didn't understand me, and I didn't understand them. Then one day, one of my colleagues in the parliament said that I should save the hate mails. "When something happens to you, it will give the police a lead."

Solution


  1. senders
  2. years
  3. personal
  4. mails
  5. emails
  6. taught
  7. background
  8. minority
  9. women

Original Text


My inbox is full of hate mails and personal abuse and has been for years. In 2010, I started answering those mails and suggesting to the writer that we might meet for coffee and a chat. I have had hundreds of encounters. They have taught me something important that I want to share with you.

I was born in Turkey from Kurdish parents and we moved to Denmark when I was a young child. In 2007, I ran for a seat in the Danish parliament as one of the first women with a minority background. I was elected, but I soon found out that not everyone was happy about it as I had to quickly get used to finding hate messages in my inbox. Those emails would begin with something like this: "What's a raghead like you doing in our parliament?" I never answered. I'd just delete the emails. I just thought that the senders and I had nothing in common. They didn't understand me, and I didn't understand them. Then one day, one of my colleagues in the parliament said that I should save the hate mails. "When something happens to you, it will give the police a lead."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
hate mails 6
danish parliament 2
hate mail 2
bring food 2


Important Words


  1. abuse
  2. answered
  3. answering
  4. background
  5. born
  6. chat
  7. child
  8. coffee
  9. colleagues
  10. common
  11. danish
  12. day
  13. delete
  14. denmark
  15. elected
  16. emails
  17. encounters
  18. finding
  19. full
  20. give
  21. happy
  22. hate
  23. hundreds
  24. important
  25. inbox
  26. kurdish
  27. lead
  28. mails
  29. meet
  30. messages
  31. minority
  32. moved
  33. parents
  34. parliament
  35. personal
  36. police
  37. quickly
  38. raghead
  39. ran
  40. save
  41. seat
  42. senders
  43. share
  44. started
  45. suggesting
  46. taught
  47. thought
  48. turkey
  49. understand
  50. women
  51. writer
  52. years
  53. young