Before You Forward Another Email; PLEASE READ THIS!!!

OK first let me thank all those who forward emails without confirming them first, for the inspiration for this rant. Believe it or not I didn't have anything to write or talk about today until I received the latest rumor everyone couldn't wait to forward without knowing of it was true or not.

If this rant offends anyone but makes you think before forwarding another urban legend or rumor you receive to everyone it your email group, then I make no apologies.

The latest victim of a total false rumor is Hezekiah Walker- please read http://ajwoodson.blogspot.com/2006/02/hezekiah-walker-and-gay-affair-story.html
I posted this as a separate entry because I wanted those coming to my blog to be able to find it easily and see the headline and prayfully it will stand out. Everyone was so eager to forward an email stating that brother Hezekiah was gay and his wife was leaving him.

No one questioned this, no one didn't find it strange they didn't hear about it on BET, MTV, ya morning radio shown read about it in the newspaper. They just received an email and were quick to forward that email to everyone they know, further spreading these venomous lies about a prominent member of our community. Believe me if this was true it would have been on everything you read, watched and heard not just an email blast from a site you never heard of. What they just gonna scoop the world, I don't think so.

WE NEED TO THINK BEFORE WE CONTRIBUTE TO THIS. If rumor went around about you, you would be made at everyone who knew you and spread it without checking with you to see if its true. But you are willing to just defamate this brothers character without any thought or hesitation, adding your comments to the email as you send it to those you know.

Now personally I am tired of telling telling those I know to be careful about sending out and forwarding emails without checking them out. One the danger is most likely you received it from someone you know and trust that person so you didn't question it and neither will those that know and trust you.

I try to hit reply all and reach those who were included to the email I received the rumor or urban legend. But I don't feel and I know my people are not as eager and as quick to forward the email I sent out proving the info false as they were the rumor or controversy. I'm not going to fool myself that writing it here today will totally correct the problem, but if I reach a few and they reach a few and they reach a few then my work is not in vain.

Black people have always been a victim of believing most of what we hear on the radio, read in the newspaper and see on television especially on the news without questioning it. We except it and then repeat it to everyone we know, further spreading the rumor. The internet is even worst because now instead of receiving these rumors from television, newspapers and radio we are receiving them from forwarded emails from people we know and trust and are more likely to believe. Those who have contributed to our overall miseducation are counting on it. Concentrate on this petty rumors takes our attention to real issues like what the government is doin and things of that nature. And we fall for it all the time.

SO PLEASE CONFIRM EMAILS YOU RECEIVE

BEFORE YOU SEND THEM ON TO THOSE YOU KNOW.

When I tell you something on this blog I try to give you sources to check this info yourself. We have to think for ourselves and stop being so eager to just believe anything everyone tells us and then so quick to further spread that rumor without confirming it

I'll put it this way, just like the children's book The Boy Who Cried Wolf, when you do have some important info that needs to be shared with friends and families, they will believe you a lot more if they last ten things you send them, that they sent to other turned out to be false. please pay attention to that part if you don't hear anything else I have said.

sites you can refer to
to confirm if the email you received is true or false before you forward them are:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/
http://www.snopes.com/
http://www.scambusters.org/legends.html

But in a situation like Pastor Hezekiah Walker, like I wrote early let me say again if you didn't hear it on the radio, television and newspaper there's a good chance it isn't true. Something that big with a person of his status (especially being a Pastor and gospel recording artist) would be front page news everywhere, and you would be hearing it from too many sources, not just ya peoples email they got from someone else. Now I know I just told you not to believe everything you see, read and hear but something this big would have been all over all of these forums and you wouldn't be able to move without the news hitting you.

Bottom line, lets me more careful with what information we put out there, because spreading the lies and rumors like this one about brother Hezekiah makes all of you a part of the problem and as guilty as the one who originally created it and put it out there.

Oh yeah! As I close let me leave you with this:
IF YOU JUST NEED SOMETHING TO FORWARD TO YOUR PEOPLE, FORWARD THIS!!!

as always please holla back and let me know what you think.

This concludes my rant for today

Have A Blessed Day!!!!