The 10 Types of Hate Mail Every Black Writer Receives

One of the few silver linings from the last two weeks of police-involved violence is that some genuinely brilliant and fearless and incisive and resonate work from black writers has sprung from it. Making this particularly impressive is that theyโ€™ve found ways to distill, craft and articulate unique angles and relevant points while still processing…

One of the few silver linings from the last two weeks of police-involved violence is that some genuinely brilliant and fearless and incisive and resonate work from black writers has sprung from it. Making this particularly impressive is that theyโ€™ve found ways to distill, craft and articulate unique angles and relevant points while still processing the same collective trauma that much of black America is experiencing.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?

Unfortunately, if you were to ask each of those writers if theyโ€™ve also received (at least) several hate-filled messagesโ€”comments, tweets or emailsโ€”in response to this work, I have no doubt that each of them would offer a resounding โ€œYes!โ€ Perhaps even a sarcastic โ€œNo,โ€ like, โ€œOf course I didnโ€™t receive any hate mail. Because of course that never, ever, ever, ever, ever happens to me.โ€

And Iโ€™m sure of this because 1) Iโ€™m also a black person who writes about race and 2) I get enough hate mail to curate a collection of essays, perhaps called Chicken Soup for the Stupid Nโ€”gerโ€™s Soul.

I get so much of it, in fact, that I can separate it into distinct flavors. Here are my 10 favorite ones:

1. โ€œYouโ€™re the real racist.โ€ I wonder if the people who call the people who point out racism โ€œthe real racistsโ€ carry that dynamic elsewhere. If a doctor tells them they need to lay off the sugar, do they reply, โ€œYouโ€™re the real diabeticโ€? Would they say, โ€œYouโ€™re the real leaky faucetโ€ to a plumber who told them they need new pipes?

2. The stealth bomb.ย It starts off innocently enough. With a normal sentence (โ€œJust read your latest โ€ฆ โ€). Or perhaps even what seems to be a compliment (โ€œRarely does a piece compel me to respond, but yours did โ€ฆ โ€).

And then, right when your guard is almost down, seemingly out of nowhere comes, โ€œAnyway, I just wanted to remind you youโ€™re a filthy nโ€”ger crack baby.โ€

3. The racists who donโ€™t actually know or like any black people but pretend to and wish the writer were more like the black people they donโ€™t actually know or like. These are also often the ones who reference dead civil rights icons they definitely would have hated (โ€œYou need to be more like MLKโ€) and random living black people theyโ€™re pretending not to hate to make a point (โ€œI never heard Oprah or Flo-Rida talk any of this Black Lives Matter messโ€).

4. โ€œDear Nโ€”ger.โ€ The hate mail that leads with a polite formality, like โ€œDear,โ€ and then dives right into hate speech is actually my personal favorite because it shows that the racist at least has a sense of humor. If I were the type of person who spent hours per week writing hate mail to writers, Iโ€™d totally start messages with โ€œDear Nโ€”gerโ€ or โ€œHello, Mr. Coon!โ€

5. The โ€œcleverโ€ racists who believe theyโ€™ve caught you in a trap.ย โ€œSo, you say black lives matterโ€ย the letter begins, setting me up for the bear trap he so cleverly is about to lead me into. โ€œBut what about black-on-black crime? Do those black lives matter?โ€

โ€œDammit, foiled again!โ€ is what I never actually think.

6. The racist who really needs to have a drink or a vacation or an orgasm or something to release all of that anger. These messages tend to read as if a house cat was dabbing on the keyboard while they were typing:

โ€œWHY ONY UO BLAVK PROPLR EVER JUST FOCYSE ON GOOD THINGS AND ALWAYS HAVE TO BR8BG UP RACE??? IT MAKES ME OSM ANGET THAT GOOD WHITE PEOPLE HAVE TO SFFER BECAUSE OF RACST IDOTS LIKE YOU AND YOUR PEOPE.โ€

7. The insult that the racist doesnโ€™t even realize is actually a compliment. โ€œMaybe Iโ€™m racist today. But youโ€™ll have dark skin and nappy hair forever.โ€

(Sโ€”t, I hope so. Thanks!)

8. The racist who doesnโ€™t even realize that a race-based piece of satire was actually satire and not real. โ€œI just read your piece on 10 Reasons Why the Obama Presidency Has Been Bad for America, and I loved your list! Especially the part about Michelle being the first first lady to bring a hot comb to the White House. I canโ€™t wait until those Cooncago criminals are kicked out this year, and Iโ€™m glad I found a black person brave enough to say it!โ€

9. The racist who very obviously got his racist emails mixed up because the person heโ€™s insulting is clearly not you. โ€œOf course, a half-breed like you would defend another half-breed like Jesse Williams. Iโ€™m almost as ashamed of your white half as you are.โ€

10. The non sequitur.ย Thereโ€™s no intro, no punctuation, no indication of what theyโ€™re responding to. Just sometimes an entire email consisting of one word (โ€œCoonโ€) or perhaps a riddle from a Stormfront postcard (โ€œBeing half nโ€”ger is like being half pregnantโ€).

Damon Young is the editor-in-chief of VerySmartBrothas.com. He is also a contributing editor at Ebony.com. He lives in Pittsburgh and he really likes pancakes. You can reach him at [email protected].

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