How My Friendly Neighborhood Listserv Became a Racial and Political Battleground
Something about the internet turns cheerful neighbors into the worst of online trolls
I’ve rarely witnessed a fistfight between neighbors.
Yet some days I feel like we fight constantly. Instead of using our fists, we battle with the words typed into that little email square we send off to the internet. Sticks and stones seem somehow quaint in comparison to the vitriol that seeps through my neighborhood listserv.
Some weeks, the listserve is a jumble of “for sale” notices, food truck schedules, and curb alerts (baby clothes, pots and pans, bedraggled racks of various sorts). Then something occurs that feels like a match struck to the driest tinder. Recently, an alert regarding proposed traffic changes morphed into a bicyclist versus motorist smackdown. Then one scribe inadvertently — as least I’m hoping it was inadvertent — mentioned the widow of a neighbor killed while biking. The mention was not loving or kind in any way.
I’ve never met the writer, and wouldn’t be able to pick them out from a DMV line. Suffice to say, I thought this post was unwise, though I kept this thought to myself and moved on with my day. But a number of people went much further. They thought the worst…
