Be careful who you forward emails to -- especially if you're a racist right-wing thug...
My wife received an email forward today that was not intended for her. Fortunately, rather than ignoring it, deleting it, or marking it "SPAM," she looked at it. This email had already been forwarded to more than 20 people -- many of them with military email addresses.
The subject line is: "New Name for Airforce 1 (look at the tail)", and the email contains the following image:
I don't think I really need to comment on this. But I have to admit that I was a little shocked -- not necessarily shocked that we still have racists in our society, but by the openness with which these people admit their racism.
The second person to forward this email included his signature, complete with full name, business and contact information -- which I include here:
--Name and business info removed by diary author--
Give Bob a call, and let him know you thought this "NIGGER" photo was hilarious.
And, if you'd like to email anyone else on the list, please feel free. Complete body of the email follows:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
**--removing these email addresses in response to comments -- diary author
. . . . . . . . edited . . . . . . . .
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxx, xxxxxxxx [mailto:xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com]
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 9:13 AM
Subject: New Name for Airforce 1 (look at the tail)
**-- leaving in the original sender's email address, cause I don't care if his privacy is respect or not. Don't send this kind of garbage. --diary author**
**-- updated: I have now also removed the original sender's name and email address in response to the many comments -- although personally I do not agree with this, unless there was some reason to believe that the name and address did not actually belong to the sender --diary author
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Update1 (this is a duplicate of my last comment -- decided to include it in the post, rather than having it lost in the comments section):
I contacted the guy from Orbit Industries, asking if he had meant to send this, and warning him that if he did not send it then someone might be using his email address for fraudulent purposes. Received this reply:
I am extremely embarrassed. I voted for our President. I did receive the picture attached and forwarded – not as part of my position or belief, someone asked to see it. I have no idea how this has came full circle to receiving emails and phone calls.
I can guarantee you that I am a Obama supporter, not what I am being called – just forwarded an email that has been turned into something I am not happy about.
Lapse in judgment, should have never supported the request to forward that email.
My apologies
I actually feel a little bit bad about this now...
At any rate, it sounds like he's been getting [angry?] phone calls, so we should probably leave the guy alone.
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Update2 - 3/25/09:
I decided to contact a few other people in this email thread -- so far have only heard back from one other, the guy who appeared to have forwarded it on to 11 of his friends:
Good day.
Just wanted to let you know that this is being forwarded around -- not sure if you meant to send it out? If you didn't send it, someone could be using your email address for fraudulent purposes.
Thanks.
Response:
Thanks Dustin I’ll keep an eye on that.
Kind of a non-denial denial, I guess. He didn't express much concern, let alone outrage. I'm fairly sure he did indeed forward the email on to 11 other people -- it's probably worth noting that 3 of them had the same domain name as his.