• Number of messages sorted through: 262
• Number of spam messages missed by filters: 2
• Number of real messages marked as spam: 0

FROM: Kermit Couch
SUBJECT: Don’t be ashamed of your wrist anymore.

I totally want a Kermit couch.

Comments always welcome.

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• Number of messages sorted through: 274
• Number of spam messages missed by filters: 4
• Number of real messages marked as spam: 1

FROM: Daren Watts
SUBJECT: Welcome to the world of big monsters in pants and big possibilities.

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• Number of messages sorted through: 348
• Number of spam messages missed by filters: 5
• Number of real messages marked as spam: 2

The lateness of this column is due to my waiting to see if anything interesting actually showed up in spam this week. Apart from hearing cheap Viagra called “testromaniac pillules”, it’s the normal batch of meds, watches, Nigerian princes, and UK lotteries.

Except for one message inquiring whether I need any plastic molding or plastic parts from a factory in Dongguan, China. Which, considering the state of the economy, might actually be an authentic email; with all the businesses going out of business and scaling back production, I could see the Chinese manufacturers looking to pick up some extra bucks by randomly asking strangers if they need molds made of anything in particular.

To tell the truth, not much struck me as either funny or important in this week’s batch. So I post this purely to maintain the numbers at the top.

New episode underway. More posts in the following week.

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• Number of messages sorted through: 170
• Number of spam messages missed by filters: 7
• Number of real messages marked as spam: (2)

I am often disturbed by my spam.

Oh sure, it’s occasionally unsettling to get email from yourself proclaiming great advances in member-hardening technology.

It’s even yet still more heebie-jeebie generating to get an email with nothing in the subject line OR THE ADDRESS LINE, saying merely, “Hi John!” That had never happened to me before, and I admit it gave me a bit of a shudder. But that’s not the kind of disturbance I really mean.

No, every week, I must admit, the numbers reported above are ever so slightly skewed. Because every week I have to make a choice as to how to classify the email forwarded to me by my elderly relative in South Carolina.

I have never really known my father’s side of the family. It was an intriguing prospect when I found one of them was online, despite his advanced and further-advancing years. We exchanged a few brief email pleasantries, and I fully intended to get a longer conversation started when I had a chance.

Within a week, I received my first “FWD: I CAN’T BELEIVE IT.” (That probably wasn’t the original subject line, but it conveys the general impression of similar, familiar subject headers.) It was, if I recall, a mildly conservative rant presented in a vaguely humorous style. I deleted it without too much thought, thinking the occasional email forward was a price I was willing to pay to have access to that branch of my family tree.

Soon, more FWDs arrived. Mildly off-color jokes. Aggressively Christian anecdotes. No personal messages attached; always forwarded three or four times before reaching me. All the messages were very right-wing Republican; for a time I would read them in order to get a better idea of how the other side thought and felt. I saw it as a way of learning more about this relative, too; it was clear we were of two different worlds, and his was a very conservative, old-school Southern viewpoint.

Unfortunately, it further became clear that it appears difficult to adhere to such a viewpoint without accompanying doses of jingoism and bigotry.

Messages began arriving around Christmas of 2006 calling for, of all things, a ban of the Christmas stamp offered by the Post Office because it had an image of a Christmas tree illustrated with Arabic letters. The message was filled with hateful misapprehensions about Islam and awful, awful things about those who practice said faith. It was then I first felt the disturbance I’m feeling today.

More hate-filled messages arrived, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. This is a relative I could barely remember, whom I have not talked to in 20 years. What would I be able to say that would be contextualized well enough to have any lasting effect? I doubted I would be able to influence this relative in any way without first making an effort to become a greater part of his life, and yet I found the idea of knowing him at all more and more distasteful.

Then the messages stopped. It was a curiosity, to be sure, but I was also relieved. Had he passed away, I would have heard, so I just assumed that the messages were tapering off naturally.

Some months later, clearing out my spam filter, I realized the truth: they were all being shuttled off into the spam corral instead of finding their way to my inbox. I discovered this last year. I still haven’t done anything to correct it.

All the messages from him are now labeled as “might be spam” and held in my special reserve box. It makes it incredibly easy to ignore, to delete without pause, to just shake my head at the fact that after all these years, I discovered a racist older relative I never knew I had. Welcome to the Generation, kid. We’ve all got one somewhere.

But this newfound project of actually paying attention to my spam has given me pause; what is the correct course of action, here? It’s clear that this relative is incredibly distrustful of any non-white, non-Christian folks. He’s rabidly pro-American (in that way that is actually fiercely un-American if you know anything about history). He’s ultra-conservative. I have yet to see a homophobic email forwarded, but I’d be incredibly surprised if he were tolerant at all of anything other than strict hetero-normative sexuality. In short, judging by the things he sees fit to forward my way, he doesn’t seem like someone I want in my life. And were he to know anything about me, I severely doubt he’d want me in his.

In my younger days, I likely would have written him a polite email asking him to stop forwarding me hate speech. Now, I’m not so sure. He’s old. He’s very old. So are many of the people like him. His particular brand of violent terror is dying out. I could just go on letting my spam filter keep his messages out of my day-to-day life until they come to a natural end.

Or I could say something. Recently I keep composing angry responses in my head, violently disputing each and every claim of each email. But I don’t write them down. I don’t see a violent response doing any good. But maybe it would. Maybe the shock of having the boychild reject every principle you hold dear might actually lead to… or cause bitterness and pain, or do nothing. Such an action on my part is purely selfish, no matter the reaction.

So to respond with love? To attempt to address the issues in a calm manner? What would that do? Would it do any good? Would it change his mind? SHOULD I attempt, at this point, to change the mind of a man I barely know, simply because we share some DNA somewhere? What’s more, how to generate the love necessary to pull it off? I don’t care how closely related you are to somebody; it’s actual closeness that matters. I can’t automatically love someone I wouldn’t recognize in a small, not terribly crowded room. And without a love to transcend my automatic dislike, I doubt anything gentle would be persuasive or sincere.

Should it be done? A response is a commitment on my part, a commitment to try and forge a relationship with this long-lost relation. To do so would allow me access to a deep history of my father’s family, something I’ve never had. On the other hand, if my father’s family is filled with hateful bigots, perhaps it’s history best left undiscovered.

I got that Christmas stamp forward again this week. The spam filter missed it. I kept it on my phone for a day before deleting it. I just don’t know how to react.

What say you? Opinions, anecdotes, similar dilemmas, all welcome in the comments.

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• Number of messages sorted through: 172
• Number of spam messages missed by filters: 3
• Number of real messages marked as spam: 1

From: Chiefjusticemohammed Uwais
Subject: GOOD DAY

You know what? You’re right. It IS a good day. It snowed today. That probably does deserve all caps.

From: Anita Mansah
Subject: PLEASE READ WELL

Oh, I intend to. Thanks for looking out for me.

From: aw-confirm@ebay.com
Subject: Phishing: eBay Unpaid Item Dispute for Item #29025…

My, it was nice of you to tell me you were Phishing. Saves me the trouble of ignoring you.

From: “Desmond Clayton”
Subject: Your new female guest will love that you are blessed.

I’m sure she will. Did you intend to write a rhyming couplet? Kudos.

From: danceaward2009@tiscali.it
Subject: DancEurope2009: The way to show your dance competition performances in the best theatres of Europe’s Capital Cities.

Um… what? I think maybe you’re looking for Bill T. Jones. Or, really, anybody who gives a crap about dancing.

From: AccesD
Subject: Participez au concours « AccesD au Cirque du Soleil »

Oui? Non.

From: BLOCKBUSTER
Subject: GET SMART and KUNG FU PANDA are at BLOCKBUSTER®

Well, there’s a mighty fine reason to avoid Blockbuster. Not that I needed another one.

From: Shell Oil Customer Service
Subject: YOU ARE NO(5)

I AM NOT A NUMBER, I AM A FREE MAN.

From: Mrs. Mimi Kirian
Subject: OK?

…yeah, I am. Though I could use some more tea.

On the subject of spam, comments are always appreciated.

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