Dear Editor,
I was pondering whether I should write this letter to you or not, because I still cannot understand the reason for such a reaction from whom at first sight I considered a lady. I was driving on the Emmaplein going towards Front Street when I saw the head and part of the body of a little girl who was on the passenger side of the front seat sticking out of a car which was driving slowly towards me.
Because I had noticed that the driver was not looking at the child, when I got next to the car I said in a clear voice to the driver, “pull the child in the car.” As I am writing this now I am still flabbergasted by the reaction of that female driver. The words had hardly left my mouth when the driver shouted at me, “Shut your *ss.”
I was shocked, but even more than that I felt sad, because this is the kind of behavior that some parents expose their children to from a very tender age. The same parents who will be the first to say how rude the children nowadays are.
I do not know if that female driver (I would rather say “lady”, but at this stage I am not sure if her response would be “how do you know if I’m a lady or not”) has had a previous not-so-nice encounter with me, I believe in this case the well-being of the child should come first.
There were two ladies in the car with me and the reaction was complete silence for a good while, then one of them said, “Well, Mr. Russell, she gave you something to write about.”
Because I had promised not to write anything negative to you in order to let the people share the love in the right way, I hope you will not publish this letter on Monday..
However, this kind of behavior from grownups does not depict any kind of love, and is not going to help the youth. That lady knows who she is and I sincerely hope that she has some kind of remorse.
I believe what can be done to help remedy a situation like this one is for the person who is involved in this kind of rhetoric to use the talk shows, by showing that they can be the bigger person, and apologize for their behavior. Hopefully there will not be the necessity for too many apologies.
The motorcycle accidents continue!
Russell A. Simmons
