Outwardly she looks just like any other suburban white woman. She looks like her neighbors and her friends. Her face wears her titles of wife and mother and while not unpleasant it is forgettable. She lives in a nice house in an upper middle income suburb with her nice husband, her nice kids and even her nice dog. She works, wants for nothing and announces her religious affiliation with mock heraldry to anyone who will listen. She smiles the smile of someone with a secret. The secret is her secret life as a cyber coward. Behind the façade is a bully, every bit as mean and deliberate as Lori Drew, the 49 year old woman who was recently indicted in the cyber bullying case involving the suicide of 13 year old Megan Meier of O’Fallon, Missouri. Unlike Drew this coward, who shall be known as Mrs. E. is a racist cyber coward. She is an adult cyber bully who spews her hatred by using e-mail remailer services and fictitious identities. She has even gone so far as to enlist the aid of her friends to assist her in her almost unrelenting hate campaign against a black woman. What makes this case particularly distasteful is that the women have never met and the language in the e-mails makes numerous references to being a “Christian”, how busy the devil is and how unforgiving God is. From her standpoint black people, women in particular, are less than human, sub-standard “awful things” that harbor a variety of unmentionable sexually transmitted diseases. The vitriol flows in her e-mails like water from a poison tap. It permeates the soul of the reader like an ugly emotional stain and takes them back to a time best forgotten. This cyber coward/bully has enjoyed the luxury of white privilege, the ticket to societal acceptance in a world where persons of similar ilk endeavor rigorously to sustain the idea of separatism. In her world human worth is measured in shades of whiteness. Her God is white, her church is white, her friends are white and her life is white. She is blinded by her own imperfections because she only sees white. Very few states have legislation on the books defining adult cyber bullying as a crime. The cyber coward here is guilty of cyber ethnic intimidation. Her communications are very carefully scripted veiled threats and serve as permanent testament to her real life cowardice. She is repugnant and disreputable. She represents the very worst in humanity, no matter what the race or color.
©2008Marsha Dean WalkerAll rights reserved
Outwardly she looks just like any other suburban white woman. She looks like her neighbors and her friends. Her face wears her titles of wife and mother and while not unpleasant it is forgettable. She lives in a nice house in an upper middle income suburb with her nice husband, her nice kids and even her nice dog. She works, wants for nothing and announces her religious affiliation with mock heraldry to anyone who will listen. She smiles the smile of someone with a secret. The secret is her secret life as a cyber coward.