Why do you not hate poor people?
I went downtown today and had an interesting encounter with a homeless man. It was on the El almost to my stop. He came over and asked me what time it was. I told him and he acted surprised that I did not have “a negative reaction” to his question. I was a little surprised myself at this. I had only told him what the time was, not a big deal. He went on to ask me, apparently in all seriousness, why I didn’t hate poor people. The best response I had was that I could recognize that I was not all that far from being homeless myself. I had to say that as I was getting out of the train, as he came up to me as I was preparing to leave to get off for my stop. I had in mind that Julie had just gotten a job and the pile of jobs that we had been keeping were just barely enough to keep us from sinking too quickly. As a matter of fact, if she had not gotten the job we would have had a hard time paying rent at the end of this month. He didn’t know that and might have been a little confused at my response. I wished him a good day as I left.Thinking about it later I could come up with a hundred very good reasons why I don’t hate poor people. For starters I try not to hate anyone. I don’t think he had in mind open hatred, but only he and God know what he has experienced talking to white people in downtown Chicago. Jesus was homeless. I have worked with homeless people in my time at DFCS. It amazes me that one can hate another due to the lack of a certain resource.Why would he ask me that question? I can only guess that he has gotten hateful reactions from people. It is not hard to imagine. People walk around downtown Chicago seemingly with tunnel vision. They can see where they are going and not necessarily not much else. The walk is a fashion accessory more ubiquitous than an ipod. If its not an ipod then its a cell phone, or even a determined look. The message is clear; I am going somewhere and don’t try to stop me. From what little I know, homelessness is marked by a lack of that very thing, going somewhere. The people who ride busses and trains for warmth are not going anywhere. When one breaks the other’s relentless cadence of movement-with-purpose….hatred.I think there is also a reflection of themselves that people with money see in people without it. They see that two months out of work could land them in the same circumstance. They know that they have $10,000 in credit card debt (the American average) hanging over their heads that they cannot repay. I think that those who respond hatefully know that their purposeful walk is an illusion. That where they are going is not nearly so important as they appear to think it is and the intrusion of a real human being with a real human concern, like eating a meal or gaining a sense of control over their world by knowing the time, this is too much reality to handle. Sad that is not much reality at all. I don’t know what motivated that man to speak to me or to respond as he did. I didn’t stop my own purposeful walk to find out. Twenty minutes later I wish I had invited him to get a cup of coffee with me, its where I was headed anyway. I find it extremely ironic that in the city where human intersection is unavoidable due to sheer proximity people act like they are the only ones in town. The only ones with concerns and needs, the only ones worth being the motivation of a movement-with-purpose walk.
ajdele
There are a lot of homeless people in Boston. And not just homeless, but panhandlers, the ones who sit outside of drug stores and shake cups of change. Some are nice, some aren’t, and they get ignored by probably 99.9% of the people that walk by them. I can’t claim to be one of the other .1%. I don’t hate homeless people. If one of them asked me the time or another question, I would respond. But it’s usually just “Spare change?”
There was one guy, who sat near a Starbucks by our old place in Cambridge. Near Christmas, my company had given everyone a pie. On my way home with the pie, and some groceries, I passed the homeless man and he said what he always says. “Spare change for a sandwich? No alcohol, no drugs.” I had a whole pie, one that was given to me and I didn’t even need because we had pie at home already. And I just kept walking. I was sympathetic, but not enough to do anything about it. And it makes me angry to think of how I just did the whole movement-with-purpose thing you mentioned.
I may not be able to give a quarter to everyone that I pass that says “Spare Change?” but I could have given that guy a whole pie, and maybe invited him in to Starbucks. That I didn’t tells me things about myself that I wish weren’t true, but that only I can really make the effort to change.
quote: “Jesus was homeless”. i’m homeless? how did you know!