#84. Ghosts, Dogs and Registered Mail (a hoax?)

Black people are sometimes subjected to horrifying hoaxes. Black people, it must be remembered, can do no wrong in America and because of them, we finally have what CNN has called the "first hip president" in Barack Hussein Obama.

Without the ultra-hip Obama at the helm, the United States would still be run by boring, dry and insipid White men.

However, Black people have been the subject of a ruthless hoax that has attempted to slander their collective good name in what they fear the most.

A purported poll in Ebony magazine asked that very question (what do you fear the most?) to its readership, which is comprised almost entirely of Black people.


Black people responded, with:

1. Ghosts
2. Dogs
3. Registered Mail

A poll was also purported to have been conducted by Country Living, a magazine devoted almost entirely to White people. It asked the identical question, garnering a much different top three from White people:

1. Nuclear war/terrorist attack in US
2. Child/spouse dying/terminal illness
3. Terminal illness/self

This largely internet driven rumor has been deemed a hoax. No such poll was conducted by Ebony. Nor Country Living.

Snopes, an online investigation website, reports that:

"...the racial denigration in the piece is obvious. When white folks worry, they concern themselves with weighty matters, but when black people fret, their anxiety focuses on far less dire things… Moreover… the fears of white people mostly involve dangers that threaten others as well as themselves, but black people (sic) worry about things that are strictly limited to the individual. Black people are therefore not only laughably trivial in their concerns, but also wholly self-involved."

How dare anyone believe that Black people are trivial, laughable and self-involved! This hoax, that Black people fear ghosts, dogs and registered mail is silly and obviously a lie.

Hoax-Slayer, a website that debunks hoaxes, goes further, writing:

"The bogus "results" of the supposed surveys perpetrate unjust and outdated racial stereotypes. The implication is that the black responders are motivated largely by foolish superstition while the "superior" white readership is concerned about more important issues. This idea is seemingly a throwback to earlier times in which black characters in books and films were often unfairly portrayed as shallow, overly superstitious, comedic figures as opposed to more intelligent and capable white characters.

The rather bizarre reference to "registered mail" is probably intended as a racial slur that suggests black people are more likely to receive unwelcome letters such as summonses, overdue payment demands and the like via registered post than are their white counterparts."

However, three recent stories do give some validity to this poll, an alleged fabrication. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that they all fall in line with the top three things Black people fear and all involve Black people.

In Atlanta, a woman was arrested for conducting an exorcism on her son:

"A Lilburn woman remained in jail Wednesday without bond after police said she attempted an exorcism on her own son.Police arrested Sandra Alfred, 46, on Friday, charging her with false imprisonment and child cruelty.She is accused of handcuffing her son and making him go without food for three days."

Michael Vick, a former All-Pro quarterback in the NFL, was convicted of numerous charges for his roll in killing dogs, and training them to be fighting animals. He was sent to jail and kicked out of the league. Any person who would kill dogs obviously does not like them and fears them.

And finally, perhaps the best example of Black people fearing registered mail, comes from the recent financial meltdown, which has been called the "diversity recession".

The article reports:

"About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus roughly one-sixth for whites."

The subprime Mortgage crisis, which has largely been the powder keg behind the financial meltdown of the world markets, is almost entirely due to subprime mortgages not being paid...

So, perhaps Black people would not want to see any registered mail, since its arrival in your mail box bespeaks something horrible, like not paying your mortgage and having your house foreclosed. Bizarre indeed.

These are of course minor examples of individual Black people, or in the case of the subprime mortgage fiasco - a lot of Black people - merely playing into hurtful stereotypes that the fictitious poll of things that Black people fear purported to find.

Black people do not fear these things. There is absolutely no proof that Black people are, "not only laughably trivial in their concerns, but also wholly self-involved."