People's Park
After sharing with the homeless staff who run our agency toward the second week of my being here that I was here to learn from them, one particular intern took me up on the offer and asked me if I wanted to see People's Park.
People's Park, located on the campus of University of California at Berkeley, is a public place where the police, and the students, look the other way while the homeless live out their lives in the park. The contrast is stunning: chipper, fast-paced, self conscious white college kids hurry from place to place on the outskirts while all ages and races of bums wander, sit, smoke, read, and sleep in the park.
After the dust settled I wasn't sure which group had it figured out better.
Mike and I drove up to People's Park on a mission, although I wasn't quite sure what it was. I knew he wanted to show me Oakland, and, being involved historically with the hippie movement and currently a homeless hangout he felt it an appropriate place to visit. Our assignment was to interview homeless people and, I later found out, ask leading questions designed to lament the outpouring of Hurricane Katrina funding in the face of daily hurricanes on the street of Oakland. While I agreed with the sentiment I could not accept labelling the interviews as objective.
Our first candidate marked his territory with a large blanket. He had bags of groceries and personal items organized around his legs which were wrapped in antoher blanket. He was sitting up rolling his tic tacs in glue and had long brown and grey hair and pointy features. Everything was long: his legs, hair, his face, his finger nails. He accepted our invitation but refused to talk with us until we explicitly mouthed the phrase, "I hate you." He felt like this levelled the playing field nicely. Seeing I was uncertain he said, "come on, you don't have to mean it, just say it." So I did and we began our interview. I realized quickly we encountered what many people think of when they see bums: the romantic. Apparently the Carl Sandberg, "I choose to be homeless," type of homelessness does exist, albeit far more rarely than any Beat Poet would lead you to believe. He was not, to my colleague's chagrin, distressed over the Katrina funding--for him generosity was generosity in whatever form it took. So as the interview faded I asked him why he made people tell him they hated him before beginning conversation. The answer was fascinating. He said it was the only way he could be sure to trust people. Let me repeat: saying "I hate you," was the only way he could trust me. His other "friendship tester" was "the push"--he would reach up to gently yet steadily place his hand on the front shoulder of his newfound partner. If they returned the favor, peace was maintained. He said a lot of times he stays with people for a while--in the park that is--and for some time they continue to say "I hate you," and they continue to push but one day he might go to push somebody and they back away. That way he knows it's time to leave.
Maybe the idea was to bring to the forefront of conversation what would inevitably underlie it: maybe I already hated him and he just wanted to make me say it. Many of us, and for long periods of time, live in self-denial. We comfort ourselves with self-congratulatory thoughts of our monthly cash donation or our annual weeklong presence at the local "community building," activity. Even when we help, so often, it's more an ego boost than anything else: "here's your crumb...and you be grateful for it too!" Often followed by the even more delicious "you lazy bum."
Is it with anything other than hate that we treat homeless people? Who, might you ask, do I mean by the phrase "we?" I mean anybody who has a home. It's not hate with with your thoughts or your words people, but with your actions! It's default hate.
Homelessness, or the lack therof, is the most outrageous self-bamboozlement to criss cross this country--and there have been many. They are the most invisible statewide army of 633,000 people I have ever unseen.
After sharing with the homeless staff who run our agency toward the second week of my being here that I was here to learn from them, one particular intern took me up on the offer and asked me if I wanted to see People's Park.
People's Park, located on the campus of University of California at Berkeley, is a public place where the police, and the students, look the other way while the homeless live out their lives in the park. The contrast is stunning: chipper, fast-paced, self conscious white college kids hurry from place to place on the outskirts while all ages and races of bums wander, sit, smoke, read, and sleep in the park.
After the dust settled I wasn't sure which group had it figured out better.
Mike and I drove up to People's Park on a mission, although I wasn't quite sure what it was. I knew he wanted to show me Oakland, and, being involved historically with the hippie movement and currently a homeless hangout he felt it an appropriate place to visit. Our assignment was to interview homeless people and, I later found out, ask leading questions designed to lament the outpouring of Hurricane Katrina funding in the face of daily hurricanes on the street of Oakland. While I agreed with the sentiment I could not accept labelling the interviews as objective.
Our first candidate marked his territory with a large blanket. He had bags of groceries and personal items organized around his legs which were wrapped in antoher blanket. He was sitting up rolling his tic tacs in glue and had long brown and grey hair and pointy features. Everything was long: his legs, hair, his face, his finger nails. He accepted our invitation but refused to talk with us until we explicitly mouthed the phrase, "I hate you." He felt like this levelled the playing field nicely. Seeing I was uncertain he said, "come on, you don't have to mean it, just say it." So I did and we began our interview. I realized quickly we encountered what many people think of when they see bums: the romantic. Apparently the Carl Sandberg, "I choose to be homeless," type of homelessness does exist, albeit far more rarely than any Beat Poet would lead you to believe. He was not, to my colleague's chagrin, distressed over the Katrina funding--for him generosity was generosity in whatever form it took. So as the interview faded I asked him why he made people tell him they hated him before beginning conversation. The answer was fascinating. He said it was the only way he could be sure to trust people. Let me repeat: saying "I hate you," was the only way he could trust me. His other "friendship tester" was "the push"--he would reach up to gently yet steadily place his hand on the front shoulder of his newfound partner. If they returned the favor, peace was maintained. He said a lot of times he stays with people for a while--in the park that is--and for some time they continue to say "I hate you," and they continue to push but one day he might go to push somebody and they back away. That way he knows it's time to leave.
Maybe the idea was to bring to the forefront of conversation what would inevitably underlie it: maybe I already hated him and he just wanted to make me say it. Many of us, and for long periods of time, live in self-denial. We comfort ourselves with self-congratulatory thoughts of our monthly cash donation or our annual weeklong presence at the local "community building," activity. Even when we help, so often, it's more an ego boost than anything else: "here's your crumb...and you be grateful for it too!" Often followed by the even more delicious "you lazy bum."
Is it with anything other than hate that we treat homeless people? Who, might you ask, do I mean by the phrase "we?" I mean anybody who has a home. It's not hate with with your thoughts or your words people, but with your actions! It's default hate.
Homelessness, or the lack therof, is the most outrageous self-bamboozlement to criss cross this country--and there have been many. They are the most invisible statewide army of 633,000 people I have ever unseen.
posted by Ryan at 2:02 PM
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