This Email Forward has been around for over a decade and has been transmitted all over the world, from Glasgow, Scotland, to Las Vegas, Nevada–but is always presented as absolutely fresh and current. It showed up recently in Rapid City, South Dakota.
The primary text is rarely altered, though a 2010 version issued from Durban, South Africa, has localized references to make it seem as authentic as possible: “To the well dressed black dude Who Tried to Mug Me on Durban Beachfront three nights ago, I was the guy wearing the black denim jacket . . .” All such Email Forwards keep being disseminated from place to place surely because they project a social truth or sentiment that is otherwise suppressed by our politically correct mainstream media.
We can’t forget that the best fiction, including novels and short stories, can easily display higher levels of truth than nonfiction. Shakespeare’s “histories” are a good example. Even South Dakota has an occasional Walter Mitty, thanks to James Thurber’s 1939 character who could daydream a softer sense of getting even than becoming an active shooter in public.
