RANT! Racism and e-mail forwards

I have a cousin who is maybe a couple years younger than I am. She's my mother's brother's kid on the Italian side of the family. About 3 years ago, I gave her my e-mail address. That was back when I thought we'd have some sort of friendly relationship, you know, go grab lunch or browse the malls once in a while.

However, all this woman does is forward crap to me. Some are stupid cartoony e-mails asking me to forward to 8,456 of my closest friends in 10 minutes or something unlucky will happen to me. I can imagine losing 8,456 friends in the following 10 minutes if I did that.

Some forwards tell me that I will make a lot of money, run into a large fortune and get really rich if I send it to 10 of my friends now. She forwards them and she's not any richer! LOL

The WORST e-mails she forwards to me are those that "appear" patriotic, yet are masking hateful racism. Her latest e-mail that she sent me TODAY bashed Muslims. And Obama. I can't even bring myself to copy and paste it here for you to read, it is so offensive to me.

Several other e-mails that she sends me have had the theme of bashing Mexicans. It's like she's obsessed with Mexicans. It is no surprise that on those particular mexican-bashing e-mails, she leaves off her "best friend" Cyndi who happens to be a Latina.

I immediately "called her on it" the first time this happened. I replied and said, "I see you conveniently left your "best friend" off this one!"

I have sent her responses back more than once when the forward is bashing those who don't speak English. I tried to reason with her that our great grandfather came over from Italy and did not speak English. His gravestone is engraved in Italian.



That part of the family is so proud to be Italian. I am disgusted by that part of my family tree. That one particular uncle and his racist kids.

So, today, I made yet another request that she stop now from forwarding racist e-mails to me. I have replied in the past that I do not and will not subscribe to her family's point of view and to leave me off these forwards.

What are my options?

Many people believe that the old DELETE button works best.

I can BLOCK her from sending me emails.

My Favorite Option:

I prefer to speak up. I firmly believe that silence can be mistaken for complicity in thought or action. Saying nothing, she does not get to know me. Remaining silent, she continues to believe that her actions are okay, that it is perfectly acceptable to be racist, to send out hate for entire groups of people.

My mother used to "coach" me on the way to my uncle's house, to not say anything that would "cause a rift in the family" or "make waves." I had a heated discussion with my mother that I think they need to hear another point-of-view. I told my mother that I don't understand why what -I- might say would cause a rift. What about the things THEY say?

I stopped going to all family functions where this branch of the family would be in attendance. I haven't seen them since I walked out of a banquet hall on January 2, 2010. I don't miss them.

I'm about peace and love. If you cannot feel the love for everyone and the different cultures on this earth, then you are not someone that I want to be around. Simple as that. I have choices too. I will never change how those people think about the world, but I can choose with whom I associate.

Now that's freedom!

Mary