by Gary Dauphin

Have you heard the one about the special black social security numbers? What about the how black voting rights are going to expire in 2007, 2008, 2009 and so on? What about the tall, internet-fueled tale of Oprah and Tommy Hilfiger? As Tony Cox shared during Friday's News & Notes headline segment, designer Tommy Hilfiger appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show last week to dispel a hoary, internet rumor. The story? Strangely enough, that Hilfiger had once appeared on Oprah's show, where he made some pretty racist comments.

The rumor was, needless to say, false from top to bottom. Hilfiger had never appeared on Oprah until last week, and he has never been quoted anywhere making anti-black statements. Nonetheless, it's a safe bet that emails pushing the rumor will continue, only this time using Hilfiger's actual appearance as a peg.

The hoax-trackers at website Snopes.com have been following the Hilfiger hoax since 2002:

Rumors that Tommy Hilfiger made a racist remark exploded onto the Internet in the fall of 1996 after a news article purporting to be from a Philippines tabloid began making the online rounds. These self-same rumors had been in circulation at least nine months earlier, but the appearance of this article brought them to critical mass. [full item]

Such stories have a difficult, peculiar resonance for African Americans. The black community is often dependent on word-of-mouth to get important information out, and some stories that sound hoax-y, like the South Carolina CVS black hair-care scandal, turn out to have grown out of actual incidents.

Still, in the age of instant, ubiquitous email, unverified hoax emails can spread like wildfire. So, the next time an email demands of you—

DO NOT DELETE THIS MESSAGE!!
SEND IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!!!

—that's probably a good sign you should hit delete. If you're still compelled to hit send to pass the story along to friends, remember that good judgment and the use of hoax databases like Snopes (or just plain google) are your best defense against ending up on somene's spam list.

But all that said, CNN told you Tupac lives, right? Do you have a favorite urban myth? Been burned by a factoid you innocently sent off to your entire office? Let News & Views know!