Dear Editor,
An English dictionary that was in my family’s possession since I was six years old defines “racism” as “the doctrine that certain races of mankind are naturally superior to others” and a “bigot” or “hypocrite” as “ one who is intolerantly attached to any opinion, system or belief”.
After being told on Friday by someone that a certain Steven Johnson wrote a letter to you in which he referred to me as an outright racist, I went and collected that paper at your office. Shortly after I started to read the article I stopped and decided that I will not continue reading this letter because it was literally below me.
I, originating from Saba myself, know of several Steven Johnsons, so if you are a Steven Johnson but did not re-baptise me as a racist then this is not in response to you. But I will also not be the one to accommodate that Steven Johnson’s language which in my opinion is designed to have a persuasive effect, not containing sincere content.
My initial intention was to respond with “It takes one to know one” but that would bring me to the same level of Steven Johnson who does not know the actual definition of racist.
I have written many letters to you which you have published (as long as they were not instigating), which by the way I know you would not have published. Also I cannot be responsible for individual interpretations of my letters which you publish. I also am aware that you have confidence that I will be able to respond in a mature manner and I am grateful for that.
The last thing I read in that letter from Steven Johnson was “You are not selective. You hate everybody equally.” So, what am I? A general hater or a racist?
I have concluded that Steven Johnson must have been under the influence of some hallucinating stuff or he is making use of what I had written in order to get back at the government for whatever is not sitting right between them, which reminds me of the saying “A drunken man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts”.. But that is on him, not on me.
The fact that Steven Johnson. can claim that I hate everyone tells me that I have made some kind of an impact on him, or he has a collection of what I have written. I hope he will be honest enough to share the royalties. But I have written a lot of letters and sometimes people confuse one thing with the other, like “surborner” with “racist”. I do not know. I am still confused. I’m just trying to find out what is going on in Steven Johnson’s head.
He is criticizing me for being a racist (of which I clearly can see that he does not know the definition) but directly behind that he is telling me that I am not selective (treat everybody equally without favouritism or discrimination or without cheating or trying to achieve unjust advantage). At least that is what I take away from that. I stand to be corrected, but I do not think that telling the truth about someone’s behavior and singling out their ethnicity should be the criteria to qualify someone to be a racist. Would not that be just the opposite?
If I can recall well, it is not St. Maarten that has to ask for pardon, it is European countries and the USA and others in connection with slavery. If telling the truth is what Steven Johnson is using as a criterion to call me a racist then the editor of this newspaper is also a racist because that is the nature of editorials which continuously represent the truth.
I have written my piece.
Like I have become accustomed to mentioning, my father was a very influential mentor and one of the things that he taught me was a very realistic African saying: “An axe which challenges a stone to a fight, suffers a blunt edge.” And long before I dreamt of becoming a police officer he would remind us that we should never fire all our guns.
By the way , I just heard that Donald Trump was subpoenaed.
A question: could this be the same Steven Johnson who had an incident with a wall on the Little Bay road? If it is him, then definitely I’m confused, because I thought that he had won that case.
Russell A. Simmons
