MY JOURNAL I have never kept a traditional journal, except while traveling over the past decade. But, I have always written stuff. Since my first published Op-Ed letter in 1981 I have had 325 letters published in print until 2009. After that I have mainly written my opinions on the Web. It is different getting published in print. Any fool can write shit on a forum board or Webpage, but to get printed on paper you had to be selected by an editor. Also, since these opinions were mostly published in your community no matter how small or large, ppl knew you by name. Not only your friends, family & acquaintances but total strangers in town would read your stuff. I have been going thru these old writings, which I have kept filed in binders full of paper on many subjects. A lot of my opinions were not published but they were my thots of the moment and in effect my journal. Here is one I came across today in my Censorship File. Unlike posting on the Internet, even using your real name, you are still somewhat anonymous to ppl around the nation and the world. But back in the day ppl called me by fone and wrote me letters (I was in the book - fone # and address) OUT THERE by Shale June 11, 2002 The letter in my box this evening was a bit of a mystery. No return address, just a rubber stamped "C. HARPER." The address was neatly typed but missing my apartment number, so it was obviously gotten from the phone book. It was postmarked from Miami on 10 June and had a Black Heritage stamp with poet Langston Hughes. Inside, barely readable in a size 8 font on a neatly folded sheet of paper ws the two-line message, "Stop wasting space with your stupid right-wing crap. You scum are the reason for all that is wrong to society today. Just shut up." Then in much bolder and larger print was "CHILT HARPER." What could this person possibly be griping about? There was no reference to what got him upset enough to waste time looking me up and 34 cents for a stamp. Right wing? While I don't always agree with all the bleeding heart liberals that constitute most of my political alliances, (card carrying member of the ACLU, Naturist Society, SAVE Dade, Southern Poverty Law Center), I have never been accused of being "right-wing." So, I went to see what right-wing ideas of mine got published recently. On May 16th Miami New Times did a letter where I thanked them for being the first to mention Haulover Beach as "Best Beach." Usually, the right-wing nuts want to shut down nude beaches. On May 31st Street ran a very long dissertation that I wrote about sweat and what causes body odor. Advocating a deodorant-free society doesn't sound particularly right-wing to me. The most recent letter of mine to get published was in the Miami Herald on June 8th where I took issue with a columnist from the Charlotte Observer who was ranting about R. Kelly and why everyone should rise up against him, even before it is proven that he did anything illegal with underage girls. My point was that age-of-consent laws are arbitrary and set too high. Most conservatives would disagree with that stance, so I still don't see any right-wing message here. Then, as I reread my letter as published, it hit me. In that letter I took issue with the North Carolina columnist for denouncing the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" in the same paragraph that she cited the case of Tawana Brawley, the black girl who said some white guys had raped her. I pointed out that the guilty white guys in that case turned out to be innocent after Tawana admitted to lying about them attacking her and that she and her advisors were ordered to pay defamation damages. At this point Sherlock Holmes would be deducing that Chilt Harper is a black man who still thinks that the privileged white men defiled the poor little black girl. Only us "right-wing scum" would even make reference to the obvious conspiracy to get whitey off the hook by smearing shit on a defenseless black girl. Just this week I wrote a controversial article that may get published in a gay weekly. The publisher suggested that I could even use a false e-mail account to defray the irate comments. I told him not to bother, that I've been contacted before because of what I've written publicly. Some of the people thanked me for saying what needed saying while others cryptically and secretly tell me to "just shut up." Well, I'm still out there, accessible and perhaps vulnerable. It's a little scary when you realize the convoluted and illogical thought processes that some people possess but I believe in public dialogue and freedom of expression. I think that is one of the few things that is right in society today and it's too bad if it is right-wing crap.
I have never really read editorial columns---but then in the 1980's I ended writing a column for the Mainichi Daily News (the English version of the Mainichi Shimbun). My column ran once a week. I kind of felt like, who would ever read this stuff-----and every deadline day, I scrambled around for something to write about, and then wrote it as fast as I could, always faxing it right on the deadline. Then the editor would often chop off pieces I thought were important or clever (I will never forget the day she told me "I can never remember what I read at the beginning of a piece by the time I reach the end of the piece". And that is why she always cut off the joke or clever comment at the end that fit the beginning of my piece, or tied the end back to the topic sentence, or whatever). Anyway---it was amazing how many people actually read the column. I was always getting comments and compliments on my column, often from people I barely knew. I kind of felt guilty sometimes----because I knew how I waited till the last minute and then scrambled around for ideas! There was even a young fellow who started working for a company I was working for in Japan several years after I had quit writing the column (it was considered a conflict of interest). He recognized my name (which is a common name, but...) and complimented me on one of the pieces I had written----I couldn't believe it after all that time. I didn't get any hate mail for the column----it was mainly read by foreigners in Japan I beleive----and anything controversial about Japan, or its conservative policies----I think all of us gaijin (foreigners) were in consensus about...
