The WTFery of Hatemail

A yellow road sign that reads WTF?Every now and again, I get hatemail. Sometimes it's people who are mad that I reviewed negatively a book they loved, or an author they love, and sometimes it's people who take exception to the site, or something we've done in the past. It happens, and it's rare enough that I delete it and move on. 

Today I got an email that was rather fantastic in the vitriol, and called to mind the authors who have reported angry letters about the sexual content or the number of curse words in their books. This person, it seems, takes great exception to the books we/I've written, the fact that I'm a female, and given the closing, possibly also the fact that I'm Jewish. Have a look at the screedy hateration: 

To: Sarah, Candy
From: R.K. 

Subject: Nein

Your books are the most corruptable form of literature ever written. The iniquity
of your books are unfathomable and it is vile and diabolical garbage. Women are genetically and hereditarily
dysfunctional degenerate sexual creatures, who have fallen from God's grace and only redeemable by man. You are doing the Devil's work. You don't know anything, you disregard Darwinism and evolution. You are contemptuous towards God and I will sue you for all you are worth. Your writing is poison, and Shakespeare would
mock and laugh at your elementary writing style. I will make sure all these books are burned and disregarded as degenerate art. It will be my political role, I will make it my life's work.

 

Kinder. Kuche. Kirche.

 

WOW, huh? That is some grade-A asshattery right there. 

First: that last part is German for “Children, Kitchen, Church,” the alleged proper domains for women. The phase is associated with the Third Reich, though the Wikipedia article doesn't indicate that the Nazis used the phrase in any propaganda. That said, way to send some Nazi references to the Jewish lady! Happy new year to you, sir! 

What I don't quite get is how exactly my books are doing the “Devil's work” because women are “genetically and hereditarily dysfunctional degerenate sexual creatures” who are “only redeemable by man.” Does this dude think I write romance? I am also at a loss as to how on earth this person gets any dates (let alone sex) while carrying around such a low opinion of women. 

But hey, if he's burning my books, as Lillie pointed out on Twitter, he has to buy them first, so yay royalties! 

The email was sent from an address with a name attached, which I promptly Googled. Unless the person who sent it is using someone else's email account to send out their happy dispatches, it appears this person is a law student at Rutgers-Newark. Get ready, attorneys of the future. Given that the Google-trail is pretty limited for this person's name, I'm not 100% sure I've identified the correct person, but some of his philosophical quotes on LinkedIn seem to indicate I have the right dude. I'm not going to publish his name (because it would suck royally if I'm wrong) but I have all the links saved.

Clearly this person is level-11!11!ty enraged about something, and if it's his life's role to make sure my books are burned and regarded as “degenerate art,” that can only help sales. Awesome. Thanks, dude!

I'm going to go do more Devil's work now, by which I mean, reading romances and enjoying them. Hope you're doing the Devil's work – or at the very least writing some poison! 

Categorized:

General Bitching...

Comments are Closed

  1. Ros Clarke says:

    If he thinks he can sue Sarah for writing books, he is definitely not fit to be a lawyer. I say report him.

  2. Ros Clarke says:

    God. Because Jews are forbidden from using the divine name, so they use G-d to avoid it.

  3. LaraAmber says:

    I thought he was going to sue her for not giving God enough respect.  At least that’s what the grammar seems to reflect.  What passes for grammar in that crazy sauce.

  4. Roni Loren says:

    Wow. This feels like one of those emails that come out after the fact when someone has gone on some rampage. You know, like they find a bunch of body parts in his freezer or he shoots up a beauty salon or something, and then—oh, look, prior to the incident it’s been discovered that the perpetrator was sending crazy, threatening emails to random people. I agree with the others who say you should definitely report it just to be on the safe side.

  5. bookstorecat says:

    As a person whose email was once hacked and used to send creepy messages to someone, please do make sure the person who owns the address is the one who actually wrote the message. This will almost certainly involve talking to a (potentially) crazy person on the phone. Not a fun time. Good luck.

  6. SB Sarah says:

    Liz – no worries. I’m a Jersey girl and am fully aware of the awesomeness of Rutgers Law. I would never judge the whole school based on the emailed rant of one asshat. That’s like people judging Jersey based on The Jersey Shore!

  7. Tina says:

    Jody Wallace said:
    The email is so poorly written it feels like it was created (by Darwin? Or God?) using an online screed generator.

    I had the same thought.  It’s like someone just linked together random insults using a word generator or a thesaurus.  There is barely any internal logic in the individual sentences, let alone from one sentence to the next.  Referencing Darwin in one place and Satan in another?  It’s just bizarre enough that I wonder if this isn’t a troll trying to mess with the guy who owns that email address.  Or it is the same guy and he is, indeed, schizophrenic and off his meds.  Either way, it would probably be a good idea to contact the school and pass along this little (cracked) gem.

  8. CarrieS says:

    WHAT?  All of Jersey isn’t like Jersey shore???  I thought that book we read lest year or so by Snooki was a documentary!  My feeble womanly brain is all overset now.

  9. Anne V says:

    I work in higher ed, and I really encourage you to communicate with the administration of both Rutgers University and the Rutgers Law School.  I know that the administration of the school I work at is in general not so much happy to receive information about this sort of thing as they are relived to have the opportunity to do a little primary prevention of the crazy.

    FWIW, Rutgers appears to have it’s own PD, and I would probably report this to your local PD and then also to the Rutgers PD – they’ve got one specific to the Newark campus…. 

  10. Pamela Clare says:

    Somehow I don’t think it was just a screed generator or someone playing a prank. I’ve gotten lots of hate mail over the years as a journalist, including death threats from a guy who believed I was in league with vampires to collect the blood of aborted fetuses (no joke), and this person sounds like a true crazy person, not a sane person trying to *sound* crazy or a random phrase generator.

  11. Judy says:

    As an atheist I find this amusing. As a woman, ridiculous. It also brings back memories of my grandpa’s brother and that one time he made a sexist remark about ribs of men and women to a ten(ish) year old me.

    Burning all romance books in the world… Wow, that sure is a big goal.

  12. Kristy says:

    Why am I not surprised that he wants to get into politics?

    I would love to write a feminist mommy blog called Kinder. Kuche. Kirche in a totally ironic way. Probably a bad idea what with the Nazi affiliations and KKK acronym…

    *sigh* I guess I’ll settle for one of those cross-stitched throw pillows.

  13. Elena B. says:

    As a psychologist, with a strong background working with forensic populations and with the treatment of serious mental illness, I believe that the content and tone of this hate-mail should not be taken lightly. I find the following aspects of his message very disturbing: 1) His degree of righteous conviction; 2) His religious preoccupation (not because I am condemning anyone’s right to hold these beliefs, but because it can be a common symptom of a psychotic disorder); and 3) The fact that he has identified what he calls a “mission” and a target of that mission.

    I wholeheartedly agree with all of the commentators who recommend taking this to a higher level of authority.

  14. pisceschick says:

    My husband works at a university in the technology area, and he suggested you contact abuse @ rutgers.edu as the message would likely violate user policies and certainly the code of conduct.

    Was the message sent via the SBTB web form, or through their email client?  Knowing that would probably help clarify whether or not the email account was hacked.

    Good grief!  Stay strong!  <3

  15. Do something about it now before it escalates. Because I’m betting it will.

  16. Angela Carr says:

    Oh hell! I guess I’m going to hell cause I read all these trashy
    Books. As long as the authors of those book are goin with me then I’m good.
    ~angela

  17. I’m wondering how the guy knew to include Candy in the “to” line.

  18. Turophile says:

    As someone who used to run a career office at a law school and serves on my state bar association’s prof conduct committee, I want to voice agreement with Courtney Milan and a few others.  A discrete notification of the law school, and perhaps licensing agency is in order here.

  19. Wherever I’m going in the afterlife, it had better be the opposite of where that guy is going.

    I agree with the folks who say talk to the authorities. He sounds dangerously unhinged.

  20. Jimthered says:

    Apart from the vitriol, I was struck that the writer says you both “disregard Darwinism and evolution” and “are contemptuous towards God.”  I thought the ultra-religious usually embraced creationism, not evolution.  Maybe that’s just me.

    And I would contact this person’s school/employer.  If their email account has been hacked, they should know someone is using their email to send out what’s most definitely threatening hate mail.  If their email account *hasn’t* been hacked, the school should know the sort of person they have in their midst.  This email has more than a few warning signs in it.

    (And of course, I offer my continued support for your writing: intelligent, entertaining, and not at all “the Devil’s work.”  Woot!)

  21. nightsmusic says:

    Considering he intends to ‘sue you for all you are worth,’ my bet is, you have the right guy. I’m not torn! Report him! He’s obviously two eggs short of a dozen and I’m not so sure Rutgers would want a live canon like that on their student roll. I can’t imagine any university who would. Who knows how far he’d take his vitriol?

  22. MissB2U says:

    Report him.  We’ve seen how this movie ends.  Shining a little light into his mothers basement can only be a good thing at this point.

  23. Beggar1015 says:

    If I were an author I would just turn all this around and brag about it. “My books are the most corruptable form of literature ever written! Yeah! So suck on it, you genetically and hereditarily dysfunctional degenerate sexual creatures.”

  24. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. 😀

  25. What a doof. If anyone needs me, I’ll be reading some corrupting literature, since I’m a degenerate sexual creature. My husband would love that. Also, hey, its a Courtney Milan book. The universe makes sense again.

  26. SB Sarah says:

    No worries, y’all. Tomorrow amid my “List of Devil’s Work To Do,” I’m contacting Rutgers Newark and forwarding all the correspondence, headers, and identifying data. Thank you for your encouragement, though. I really, really appreciate it.

  27. Nikki Logan says:

    Oh, for the love of Satan…. 

    Maybe he and a bunch of drunk frat boys wanted to see who could be the first to start an online avalanche. It’s not the most ideologically consistent pile of spew I’ve ever seen.

    Actions and consequences, boys…

  28. Shawny Jean says:

    Honestly? It reads like spam to me, more than anything, unless there’s more to the letter that you didn’t publish. Or a badly translated piece of hatemail WTFery. Or maybe just a form letter that he’s sending to any blog he can find about romance novels/women/novels about women etc. There’s nothing in it that is aimed specifically at SBTB or Sarah. That doesn’t excuse it, but makes me wonder who the person really is, or if it’s a real person at all.

  29. Lynda Ryba says:

    Thanks. My sinuses are now super extra fizzy thanks to the soda I just snorted. LOLOLOL

  30. Jlm2509 says:

    Hugs. That letter was not fun to read.

  31. Christina says:

    Yay royalties! Awesome.

  32. CarrieS says:

    Rock on SBSarah, we love you!

  33. MissB2U says:

    You go Sarah, we in the Bitchery have your back.  And if that To Do list gets too long you can always assign a few tasks to one of your demons.  Idle hands and all that…

  34. MissB2U says:

    (Smiles) Happy to help!

  35. Ellielu says:

    That was my first thought—the email sounds like it came from someone with mental health issues. Sarah, you may doing this individual and his family/community a favor by following up on the sender. If he is undiagnosed at this point, it may be a small silver lining in all of this ugliness.

  36. The Fairy Godmother says:

    This was written by someone who either has never had a woman go genetically and hereditary degenerate sexually dysfunctional creature on his manparts, or *has* had one but has been brainwashed so much that he is certain that having an orgasm in the presence and with the contribution of another human being is landing him in hell.

    I hope the identifying data are enough to make sure that if you don’t manage to find the guilty party, at least someone innocent won’t get in trouble.

    PS: I find that people who use the terms “genetically” and “hereditary” to disparage a gender, a social or ethnic group never know what the fuck they are talking about. Evolution is not something that happens to an individual, it’s something that happens to populations, so if us women and genetically and hereditarily degenerate sexually dysfunctional creatures, then so are the men.

  37. Kelriiafrettlar says:

    First Reaction: That’s a troll.

    Second Reaction (upon reading comments): Holy shit, it’s Courtney Milan! *waves frantically*

    Third Reaction: …that’s a troll. Maybe it’s because I spent too much time on the internet, but my brain has a hard time wrapping itself around the idea that someone spewing such garbage is real, and they’re not just stringing together some of the most offensive shit they possibly can.

  38. DesLivres says:

    The person who sent that email isn’t a fit and proper person to practise law. Either because he believes what he wrote, or he has mental health issues or both. Either way it should definitely be reported – and if it’s a case of identity theft, the sooner it is pulled up the better.

    What a hideous email to receive. I hope you got loads of other lovely ones at the same time.

  39. Todd says:

    I agree that notifying the school is probably a good thing to do. The guy may need help, but the rest of us – degenerate though we may be – need to be protected. And if someone’s pretending to be him, he needs to protect himself and the real culprit found.

    Also – “Burning all romance books in the world” – no mention of global warming, but this would be a major increase.

  40. Earthgirl says:

    1) ” Your writing is poison, and Shakespeare would
    mock and laugh at your elementary writing style.” This from a man who doesn’t know the proper subject/verb agreement for iniquity would be “is”, not “are”. Remember folks, if you’re going to write a hateful screed, at least proofread.

    2) I’m pretty sure you can’t sue someone for wring books whose morals you dislike, and I should hope a future lawyer would know that. I guess he could try to get them banned, but I don’t think phrases like “magic hoohoo” are really going to qualify.

     

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