Racist Email

Dear Ask Gothamist,

How do I respond to this racist email?

J

--- --Original Message-- ---
From: NAME WITHHELD
Sent:Thursday, July 29, 200410:16 PM
To: J
Subject: your blog rocks....yet I find you to be a stupid gook

You sneaky gook
-- --- ---- --- ---- --- --- ---- ---

You don't.

Some things are better left alone, and this is one of them. If someone has the audacity to not only be racist, but anonymously so, then there is little use in engaging the person in any sort of discussion. He - and we're using "he" in a general sense, recognizing that racists come in all genders - is only looking for a response and by emailing him you would only be playing right into his hands.

If you were having a one-on-one conversation with someone and he used an offensive term, you might talk to him about how it makes you feel and why a better choice of words is in order. But such is the benefit of personal communication. You could read his expressions, gauge his tone and decide if having further contact would be worthwhile. Email, however, is impersonal and trying to communicate about this electronically would probably result in only more racist email.

Your best bet? Block his IP address so that he can't comment on your blog and block his email address so that he can't contact you again.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Doug Gordon in Miscellaneous on July 30, 2004 8:56 AM

Comments [rss]

Eric Tappan

Received this email today:

"Date: 9/2/2004 15:46:07 +0100

From: "sam anderson"

To: Webmaster@BestBlackWebsites.com

Subject: this is for you mutha fucka All headers

This message is in MIME format.

----

this is going to happen to every fucking one of you black bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!

sam anderson

e-mail: samanderson@kemail.co.uk

----

kemail.co.uk is a service of KeMe.com

http://www.keme.com/

Black Panther

I think Chinese people should go to Hell! We Americans hates you Chinks! Get out of America!

Jay

Asians are cool (besides Pearl Harbor and pee pee in your coke and yelling on the subway)

j

brilliant advice.

Mumbles

Jen, isn't it funny that most Asian countries get their own slur nicknames? My countrymen are called "dogeaters"! Love dat Philippines!

Hugs and Kung Fu protection for the sistahs.

mumbles

tien

the best is when you go to a baseball game, lets say a yankee vs. mariner game and some guy calls you ichiro.

okay, i'm about his height, not nearly as fast or as good at baseball. but just because i'm asian, that means i'm ichiro? so if someone is white i can call him...hitler? okay, maybe that's not quite the same, but you know what i'm getting at.

Jen

Usually gook refers to Vietnamese people, or at least that's what I learned in my high school history class. Oh, wait, I just Googled it and apparently it can be applied to Asians as a whole. LAME.

Lux

First off: good advice.

Second off: What is the proper usage of gook?

lana

How sad that a byproduct of the internet is the abillity to unleash the most horrible side of oneself -- basically unchecked. Guaranteed, that sorry cracker would never slur you to your face [knowing that it's rude and inappropriate behavior, of course], yet somehow feels "safe" in doing so anonymously and from afar. Sorry that happened to you!

Jen

What kills me is that this knucklehead called me a gook - get your slurs right, man! This reminds me of when some other knucklehead wrote "GOOK" on my high school locker. The principal was ashen, but I was livid because it should have been "CHINK." That said, it's pretty disgusting yet somehow amusing that someone would take the time to email me that, complete with a clown icon (from Yahoo!). Sigh, mankind...

But you are right, Ask Gothamist, this is just an idiot who deserves to be ignored. Thank you.