June, 1993
All That Is Necessary For The Triumph Of Evil Is For Good Men To Do Nothing.
Hello, my name is Donald Lathrom.
Since 1985, some Korean merchants have been trying to kill me or, at the very least, attempting to do me great harm. Certainly, they would not lament my passing and were I killed, would experience nothing but satisfaction and vindication. I have spent the last eight years virtually as a hunted animal forced to regard every stranger as a possible assailant.
The design of this attempted murder is quite simple. Motivated by hatred, utterly ruthless, devoid of principle, indifferent to truth, cruel and cowardly beyond comprehension, a group of very ugly people met privately and planned a savage campaign of character assassination directed at me. Their preparations, I am told, extended to taking my picture and distributing it.
Although millions of extremely distasteful people have welcomed the opportunity to participate in a campaign of calumny such as this, the target audience is homophobic males (latent homosexuals in the main), profoundly disturbed and capable of not only wanton violence, but also homicide. For the homophobe, I am a gift-a convenient object for their irrational fears and hatred.
I am not suggesting that the people who organized this campaign consciously planned a murder. What I do believe is that for reasons of their own, having little to do with me, they convinced themselves that I was a very bad man, indeed, an extremely dangerous man. From this conviction, it is a very short step psychologically to deciding that they had a moral responsibility to inform the world of the perils that attend me. The fact that the lies they had decided to embrace and decided to circulate exposed me to continual physical assault and even death, would appear right and just in their minds. To them, if their role in this affair was ever revealed, it could only be viewed favorably as a form of civic rectitude.
Of the Holocaust, it has been said that first, you slander, then you kill. The lies prepare the ground for subsequent murder. In this case, the slander is pretext and means, rationale and instrument.
Some of the lies that are circulating concern my sexuality. It is alleged that I am homosexual or bisexual, use prostitutes, have a sexual interest in transvestites and have AIDS or, at least, am HIV positive. All of these assertions are false. Indeed. They are so preposterous; it is hard to know where to begin in refuting them. However, the individuals who have organized this campaign are not concerned with truth. Their agenda is murder and, if successful, the lies have served their purpose. Whether true or not, I am just as dead.
The allegations regarding my sexuality are based on a deliberately selective interpretation of an inadvertent encounter I had with a transvestite eight years ago. Drunk, looking for some diversion, I met a woman in a bar that seemed to find me irresistible or, at least, had an hour or two. Naturally, I asked her to accompany me home. Upon arriving at my place, I received two shocks. First, she attempted to get some money from me. Second, I found out that “she” was “he”. There were some tense moments, but the whole situations dissolved into laughter on my part. I regarded it as a funny story with the joke on me.
My crime, in the minds of many, is that rather than reacting with hatred and violence, I, in time, experienced compassion. To certain frightened and confused individuals, compassion in circumstances such as this can only be interpreted as homosexuality. The irony, of course, is that what really bothers these people is that for the first time in their life they are being exposed to heterosexuality.
Some have suggested that it is unreasonable to conclude that what I have been experiencing can only be explained as an organized campaign designed to kill. Millions have an investment, whether consciously acknowledged or not, in denying just that reality. Indeed, some have suggested to me that my continued existence is a refutation of that conclusion.
I am alive today, not because these Koreans did not intend to kill, but because some concerned individuals took upon themselves the responsibility to secure the truth and distribute it. If it weren’t for the active intervention of these people, I would be dead today.
For those that deny an organized campaign or, if acknowledging an organized aspect, deny a particular design, consider the following.
Over the last eight years, approximately 400,000-500,000 people have acted out against me directly in some fashion. Some who are acquainted with this affair have suggested that those numbers seem high, even considering the length of time involved and the size of the population available. Granted the numbers above represent a rough estimate, but I regard it as a conservative estimate. If, in addition, I included those people who, while not acting out directly against me, derived pleasure from the knowledge that a man had been singled out for damage and death, those numbers would be in the millions.
To arrive at that estimate, I define acting out as anything intrusive enough to attract my attention, such as a thrown fist, a shouted epithet or a menacing display of a weapon. I count people, not incidents. For example, if in a group of five, one shouts, “faggot,” but all laugh, I count five.
It would take a small book to detail the innumerable ways that the individuals, who have embraced this campaign, have found to express their contempt, revulsion and hatred. For years I could expect something virtually on every block I walked, every corner I turned, every store I entered. These cruel, cowardly, malevolent and hate-filled people have been my constant companions for eight years.
The most common forms of acting out have been spitting, name-calling and threats. An interesting variation on the spitting theme entails a conspicuous clearing of the throat or a subdued, but directed cough. This form of display is favored by many woman and anal-retentive men.
Many of the incidents that I have experienced involved not hatred or menace, but cruelty. Consider, for example the following:
A group of young men requesting directions, while peering intently at my face, breaking into laughter as they observe my disfigurement.
A group of 25-30 young Asians, some yelling “faggot.” As one inquired, “How are things?” they all laugh gleefully.
Grotesquely disfigured and crippled, being followed by a group of girls dressed in parochial school uniforms, laughing and yelling, “What’s wrong faggot?”
A car with two heterosexual couples in which one of the women says loudly, “He’s a dead man“, while the others laugh.
The above are illustrative of tens of thousands of comparable acts of cruelty and malice.
It may be uncomfortable for some to accept what I am stating. Unfortunately, these people really do exist. The numbers are high, because this is the first time to my knowledge that a group has conspired to focus them all on one man. Furthermore, understand how extensive participation in this campaign has become. I have met tourists, not only from all over America, but also from many foreign counties who are acquainted with some aspect of this campaign. When I referred earlier to informing the world, I was speaking literally, not figuratively.
I am not suggesting that all of these people are potentially violent; however, many are and it only takes one. More than likely a fatal assault would come from a group of young males, half drunk, determined to prove their heterosexuality by getting a “fairy”.
I have been fortunate to date. The number of outright physical assaults including thrown objects has been minuscule--less than fifteen. Much to my surprise, I still have not encountered a serious, determined assault with the possible exception of two episodes in which automobiles seemed to be taking an unusual interest in me.
As I pointed out earlier, I owe my survival to date to those people who worked to stop the lies. After all, those would persist in the face of the truth would expose themselves to scrutiny, an outcome that most would find intolerable.
As a direct result of this continuous abuse, I developed severe stress-related neurological problems in late July of 1986. I was left profoundly disfigured and with extensive inner ear damage that effected my balance. After seven years, I am still disfigured, although much improved.
The inner ear problems left me unable to stand or sit up for extended periods and, in effect, incapacitated me for three years. Financially, I have wiped out and left heavily in debt. I have lost my home and been forced to sell off all my personal possessions simply to survive.
Some have suggested that I must have done something to provoke this kind of murderous rage. No! I do not even know the Koreans who organized this campaign, other than shopping in local stores. Prior to their decision to kill me, I had treated them with friendliness, honesty and courtesy. Indeed, I treated them no differently than anyone who had not taken advantage of me, done I deliberate harm or was outright evil.
A friend told me that their obsession with me began when a Korean woman said something “nice” about me. From observation, I’ve concluded that I am simply a convenient symbol for dangers they perceive in American society regarding the status and treatment of women.
Traditionally, Korean women are instilled with values of duty, loyalty, hard work, obedience
and virtual total self-abnegation. Korean culture itself is defined by fear and repression. Any concern for personal happiness that conflicts with perceived collective needs is anathema.
For women, in particular, societal norms dictate severely circumscribed lives and legal rights are minimal. For example, until very recently, Korean women could not inherit property and, in the event of divorce, were prohibited from obtaining custody of their children.
I recently saw a TV report in which an embryonic Korean feminist group was trying to obtain the freedom of a woman who had been sentenced to a three-year jail term. She had been raped. Her crime, apparently, was that in the act of defending herself, she had accidentally bitten off part of the tongue of her assailant and was deemed, therefore, to have resisted too strenuously. The rapist was never prosecuted or, at least, received no jail time. It sounds preposterous, I know. Upon reflection, however, this savage misogyny would not be inconsistent with the character of the Koreans I have observed over the past eight years.
I have been to the police. At a local precinct, I was refused even an interview. I was immediately turned over to a clerk who was instructed to write up one complaint of verbal harassment, although I had outlined an organized campaign, extending over seven years at that time, involving tens of thousands of “incidents” and hundreds of thousands of individuals. It was clear from the context that they knew what was going on. One uniformed officer asked me what I wanted. I replied, “I want the people who organized this; the others are irrelevant.”
Presumably, to get rid of me, I was told that I would be contacted that evening to inform me how they would proceed. I received no call that evening. The next day I returned to the precinct to see why I had not heard from them. “Perhaps the telephone number was wrong?” A surly clerk told me that I would hear form them when they were ready. I am still waiting.
I also contacted the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. Michael, their representative, by telephone refused me an interview and suggested psychiatric help. I obtained the telephone number of the bias-crime unit of the NYC Police. I was informed over the telephone that they could only act on an investigation initiated by a local precinct.
You may wonder why I waited seven years to go to the police. When this first started, I went to my friends and neighbors for assistance. No one would believe me. Several openly ridiculed me. Not atypical was one friend who said, “Don, I know they are weird people, but no one would do something like that.” Another friend listened patiently (if with total incomprehension) as I explained what I had been experiencing and that it could only be by design. He seized on one aspect that intrigued him, however, as he inquired, “women spit?” I recently found out that several of my neighbors expressed their concern by meeting privately to see how they could get me psychiatric help. It has been my experience that no one will believe any part of this, unless they have witnessed some part of it.
If you are still with me at this point, you are probably wondering why I am bothering you with all of this, other than wanting to stay alive for another day or two. This is addressed to all who are offended by cruelty, cowardice, hatred, injustice, character assassination and murder. This is a crime participated in by millions. Countless people have observed or have knowledge of something germane. If you recognize me, if you have heard something about me that knowledge combined with that of many others is prima facie evidence of a conspiracy. I am collecting the names of people who are prepared to say in a short telephone interview that they have heard something about me or have observed something that would be relevant.
