Block. Report. Delete. Repeat.

More thoughts on a hateful internet troll

Hello friends,

This isn’t the article I’d planned to write this week, but there we are. If you’ve been following me on LinkedIn, you’ll know that last week I posted about a troll. This wasn’t just any troll, spewing the usual set of ill-informed and specious arguments.

No, this troll went one better. He (because it’s almost always a he) signed up for my newsletter, waited for the welcome email, and then replied to it with a GIF of the N-word.

Think how much work that must have taken, just to tell me something I already know: that some white people, especially men, HATE Black women talking about racism and anti-racism. News flash, am I right?

I was annoyed, but I have to admit seeing the N-word GIF didn’t bite like the first time I heard the N-word (at the age of seven, in case you’re new around here).

Or like the time I heard it in French (and slept in the car rather than stay another minute under that person’s roof).

Or like the time I heard it in German (and used one of the few German words I knew to discomfit the offenders by letting them know I had understood them.)

I was younger then. Maybe I’m too battle-hardened now, lol.

More seriously, though, I know that I am not the only one to have this kind of experience. Every activist and committed ally experiences the same thing.