now I can't stop typing

[pauraque_bk]

The store where I work is on a very busy commercial drag with a lot of walking traffic. This is very different from my old store, which was right off a freeway exit and most people were coming in by driving.

There are five homeless people that I see every day on my block.

- Middle aged guy sits in a lawn chair and reads out loud from the Bible, or when he's not doing that he tells people jokes.

- Younger guy sells the homeless newspaper saying "street SPIRIT, good MORNING".

- Older guy walks up and down saying "Ma'am. Ma'am. Whatever you can. Sir. Whatever you can. Sir." If you say "Sorry", he says "Sorry won't help". He sometimes talks on a cell phone.

- Guy in clean and neat clothes sits in front of the post office and doesn't say anything, but has a cup for change and looks at each person who walks by, frowning or looking blank.

- Old woman sells paintings in front of Starbucks and says "Please help".

My boss complains about these people a lot, especially the old guy with the cell phone and the guy with clean clothes, because she believes they choose to panhandle because they're too lazy to work, and she is extremely indignant that they would beg her for money while she is working. One morning she told me this:

"When I went outside to check the window display, that bum was there who says street SPIRIT good MORNING. He said how are you, and I said fine, how are you. And he said he was hungry. So I said! Maybe you should get a job and then you wouldn't be hungry!"

She seemed very proud of her witty comeback.

I looked at her skeptically and said "That's pretty harsh. What would Jesus do?"

She said, "I think Jesus would encourage him to empower himself and get a job!"

Well, all right. I don't know if I made much of an impact on her. I mean WWJD is not exactly a devastating counter-argument between two atheists. But believe it or not this is actually an improvement over something that happened to me several years ago, but which still bothers me, and this reminded me of it.

I might have told this story before on my flocked journal when I had one, I don't remember. But at my old job, we had a lot of shoplifting. Sometimes people would pick up a container like a brush case (this was an art store) and put things in it while they walked around. So we'd notice it and let it be known we were watching them, and generally they'd put it back or pay for it.

There was one point where someone was doing exactly this, and it was a black guy. My manager then, who was a guy I hadn't worked with very long and didn't feel any particular way about, indicated to me that he thought this person was going to steal, and to watch. So I watched, but I didn't actually see him put anything in the brush case he was carrying around. After a while he put the brush case back and left, and I walked away.

My manager came upstairs after me, brandishing the brush case. He opened it up and showed me all the random items that had been stuffed inside.

"This," he said, "is why there's racism."

It would be a better story if I'd said... anything. At all. I just stared at him completely dumbstruck. He smiled triumphantly and walked back downstairs, and neither of us ever mentioned it again.

Maybe it's because I grew up in the Bay Area, maybe it's just me, but I'm too surprised when things like this happen to stand up to it in any effective way. Which scares me.

Comments

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

It's not the fact that these things would cross their minds that bites, but the fact that they feel completely okay with it, smug in their own affirmations of why they are better and why this makes sense. I..probably wouldn't know what to say either. I know some might find the fact that people can be shocked dumb by this kind of situation a good thing, but it's awful not to know how to deal with it.

[pauraque]

smug in their own affirmations of why they are better and why this makes sense

Yes, this.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Surprise pretty much does steal the words away. Also, sometimes with thought, I still don't know how to explain.

I feel sorry for the ignorant - maybe because I so often find I've been ignorant myself. That first example you give - your boss - she just lacks the information I think. She doesn't appear to understand all the reasons a person can end up homeless - and that most of those reasons aren't apparent at a glance. A lack of imagination, or no one taught her empathy or maybe so invested in the idea that she herself has succeeded that she has to see failure in others.

Your second example is maybe similar except that that guy is apparently activily looking for examples to support his racism. It would take a whole lot of talking and who knows what else to get him to see otherwise. That is where I fail - even if I could find the words, I don't think I have the will to try to open people's eyes. Just thinking about it makes me tired.

[pauraque]

She doesn't appear to understand all the reasons a person can end up homeless - and that most of those reasons aren't apparent at a glance. A lack of imagination, or no one taught her empathy or maybe so invested in the idea that she herself has succeeded that she has to see failure in others.

This is exactly what I think about it. The first time she complained about the homeless guys, I said something like, "sometimes I wonder what happened in people's lives that they end up on the street", which actually made her laugh scornfully -- not a terribly contemplative reaction. My boss is pretty volatile and hard-headed at the best of times, so I don't expect to get through to her about anything really, but at least I put the concept out there. Sometimes it takes hearing an idea many times from different sources before you start to consider whether it has merit. At least that's my experience when I've been ignorant about certain things.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

which in itself isn't unreasonable. You don't believe something just because some guy tells you it. But yes, if you hear it enough from enough people it gains enough credibility for you to at least consider it.

I guess that means we should speak up, even if it's just to throw the idea out there, as you say. I'll try harder.

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

I guess that means we should speak up, even if it's just to throw the idea out there, as you say. I'll try harder.

Yeah, I've given up on waiting for perfect reproaches that will instill some truth in people, and instead simply say what I think, hoping it'll catch. Like you, I always feel kind of bad for them -- what is it they missed out on, that makes them think this way?

I try to understand them; it helps to think of my Dad then. I've been close to people who say or feel these kind of things often, and I swear, usually they are subconsciously open for a new outlook.

[pauraque]

what is it they missed out on, that makes them think this way?

And ironically when we think this, we're applying to them the same type of empathy that they themselves do not understand! Head asplode.

posting it in the correct thread this time..

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

Oh christ yeah, believe me the thought did cross my mind. On second thought it makes me want to shoot something, not explode.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

This is something that I always feel uncomfortable about for myself because I remember reading an article--this really goes to the second story--where the author was challenging people to say something to these kinds of things. Basically, as a person of color, he couldn't understand it when white people would tell these stories to him, like to show how weird this racist person was, but when he said, "And what did you say?" they never said anything.

And of course they didn't say anything for the same reason I wouldn't and you didn't--because you don't have a clue what to say immediately. They're telling the story because they were shocked at someone saying something so bizarre and didn't have a comeback. Though really the trouble is that the comeback should be something that completely changes the tone of the conversation. Your boss thinks he's saying something witty with, "This is why there's racism" and obviously doesn't expect a rebuttle, and you don't have one prepared, even though that's what he should get. You have to get past your, "WTF?" feeling and your own embarassement to even get together a response and by then it's over. Speaking for myself here, of course, and not you or anyone else!

[pauraque]

If I had it to do over again and could prepare a reply, I'm still not sure exactly what I would say.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

First, have her watch the trailer for this movie.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

Also, I think you already have this on your flist, but how ironic? And true?

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/dinosaurcomics/165184.html