I received my first flagrantly racist email forward the today concerning the election in the United States. I will not go into who sent it to me, but needless to say I was not very pleased. I’ll do you the courtesy of not putting the photo up, but the context is that black American’s do not like to work. Offensive indeed.
I deleted and went back to the project I was working on, but my thoughts kept coming back to the email. Is this a common phenomenon in the U.S. right now? Are the racist emails flying around about Barack Obama a common practice? It made me think about how insulated my life is at times. I generally surround myself with like minded people, who I enjoy having a conversation with, and this lends itself to keeping racists as far away from me as possible.
I do believe that the United States is an incredibly racist country that has a long way to go, before we can even believe to be mending race relations. However, I was hoping we were a little further along than the email I received today.
Have any of you received emails like this? Any misogynistic emails about Hillary? let me know.
The blatant racism is at an all time high, whether its “anonymous” emails(Obama not saluting the flag, Obama in African garb as a child Obama’s image superimposed over bin ladens, ect. ect. ect.) or the general public fearless in spouting racist slurs that would have been “unseemly” a year ago. I have actually not seen nearly as much mysoginistic bullshit. I’m sure if there wasn’t a choice between a Black man and a white woman the majority of the shit would be sexist.
I’ve received several…and I mean several emails and forwards and the like about not only President Obama, but Sen. Clinton as well. Not only is it completely uncalled for, childish, stupid (notice I didn’t say ignorant) and blatantly offensive…it’s also a shock to the system to find out our so called ‘friends’ harbor such thoughts and feelings.
I’m ashamed to be white most times, and things like this only reinforce those feelings.