I recently received an email from a gentleman involved in the anti-bullying in senior housing movement (a subject of great interest to me) touting a book on adult bullying by cultural anthropologist Dr. Janice Harper. I look forward to reading the book, but bullying is not actually the focus of this article.
Dr. Harper’s backstory – FBI investigations into possible terrorist activities, allegations of sexual harassment, lawsuits against her former university employer, a derailed career – intrigued me so much that I did some further research; i.e., I did a Google search. In doing so, I came across a very interesting letter Dr. Harper wrote to the editor of the Seattle Weekly News in 2015 and an equally interesting response from another reader, a local landlord.
The letters touch on broad issues of affordable (or unaffordable) housing, homelessness, mental illness, the societal responsibilities of landlords, and a host of other weighty issues, but they do so on a very human scale. The letters bring to the surface issues that those of us who work or have worked in the trenches are all too familiar with, and dramatize the depth of our responsibilities – and the reality of our limitations.
I’m not advocating, endorsing, or refuting any of the positions taken by either writer. I simply found the exchange of perspectives represented in the letters to be illuminating and thought-provoking, and thought you might find them equally so. Click below to read the letters.
http://archive.seattleweekly.com/home/957584-129/a-letter-to-the-investor-buying
http://archive.seattleweekly.com/home/957707-129/a-letter-to-the-tenant-who