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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Civility the main thing missing in the online world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before I dive into today’s topic, I’d like to explain the origins of the Amity Ruth Kozak story.
Her obit appeared in last Sunday’s AJC Gwinnett News. The family’s request that donations be made to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (www.ncadv.org) caught my attention.
On Monday, Tim Stewart Funeral Home contacted the Lawrenceville family for me. Minutes later, Pat Kozak called and talked about her daughter’s adventurous life and the cruddy details of her death.
That Kozak, a sun and beach lover, had moved to Florida with a friend at 19.
That she’d recently been in town to attend her brother’s birthday party.
That on May 30, she was found beaten to death in the West Palm Beach apartment of her ex-boyfriend, Helder “Sonny” Peixoto, and that on the same day, he committed suicide.
Police on Wednesday said that Peixoto, 34, beat Kozak, 29, with a hammer. He took his own life by jumping from the 11th floor of a condo in downtown West Palm. Horrific.
But the comments some readers posted to the May 5 Kozak column were equally callous, cold and cruel.
“… This Peixoto man probably couldn’t get a DECENT woman to go out with him,” wrote Marita, who used caps for effect. “I wonder if there would have been such a hue & outcry if the ex-stripper was fat/ugly.”
“Anonymous” was brazen enough to address the family, calling the young woman a “gold-digger.”
When the comments rolled in, Anisha Frizzell, an AJC Gwinnett News online producer, correctly “unpublished” them. She eventually discontinued reader input, out of respect for Kozak’s family and friends.
To the family, I apologize for the vileness.
The mean-spirited responses to the column, though, exemplify what I detest about the inescapable world of electronic communication. Some people use online forums for crass dialog, to say things they’d never say face to face.
Punctuation and grammar have long been casualties of cyberspace. (The use of “your” instead of “you’re,” for example). Lack of civility, though, takes the virtual cake.
It’s become the medium to denigrate, attack, name-call, opine about people, events, and occurrences based on flimsy facts, asinine assumptions, flat-out lies.
Granted, online dabblers are no more twisted than people in the “real” world. They’re just empowered by anonymity, fake e-mail addresses and pseudo-nyms. Unfortunately, newspapers don’t filter them.
Because Kozak once worked at a strip club, some readers trashed her character. Because she left the burbs for the city, she was unwholesome, money hungry. Forget the sick suitor, domestic violence.
Last week, I tried to contact some of the people who posted so much tripe about Kozak. Only “Anonymous,” Midtown resident, called late Friday to sing an apologetic tune.
As for the others, I’m still waiting.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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