Dr. Susan Fiske, a leading sociologist, in a
major study dealt with public emotional response to different social
groups. She generalized these responses
to be “Envy” (e.g. for those who are wealthy or professionals), “Pity” (e.g.
for the obviously handicapped) “Pride” (e.g. for housewives) and “Disgust”
(e.g. for undocumented immigrants). She
developed a chart indicating the position of certain groups relative to each
other. She explained in a lecture at
UCLA that she wasn’t able to place the homeless, as a social group, on the
chart, because the American response to the homeless was so overwhelmingly in
the “disgust” category, that the group would have skewed the rest of the
chart. She said that the common
perception of homelessness is that they are a “pile of garbage”—less than human
and personally offensive to be close to.
According to the study by Dr. Fiske, the American
public have these preconceptions of the homeless:
-Homeless people are not interacted with by the mass of the population
-They do not have a relatable mind
-They are considered less competent than other groups
-They are contemptible
-They are disgusting, as if they have a communicable
disease.
-They are the equivalent of a “pile of garbage”
-One homeless person is worth less than five “normal” people
-The homeless are being dehumanized by the average American
This public perception is easily seen. A majority of comments on
Anna Griffin’s articles on homelessness have to do with how disgusting the homeless are. There is an assumption of criminal action by
the homeless, some call them “sociopaths”, while others are just wondering how
to get them out of their neighborhood. A
common thread is a lack of any perception that the homeless are fellow citizens
of our community. Rather, it is the
assumption that they shouldn’t be in public spaces. Many feel that their best location is in
jail, although the majority of criminal activity that is actually seen is
leaving piles of trash. There is a higher
level of complaints about the homeless to the police than other groups, even
when criminal activity is taken into account.
What Dr. Fiske shows, however, is that our
reasons for finding the homeless disgusting is secondary to their social
placement. The foundational reaction is
emotional, and we come up with reasons after the fact. This is why the reasons
change to such a degree, but the basic response remains the same—they must be
gotten rid of.
If our initial emotional response to the
homeless is disgust, then the primary social response is that the homeless is
the stranger, those “not one of us.”
This leads to fear, most often irrational fear, and then an assumption
of criminal behavior. Then the police
are called with complaints because of the homeless, and they feel that they
have to do something, even though they do not have any criminal act they can
act upon.
Eventually the public outcry becomes so much
that the homeless are moved from one location to another, which is how a city
responds to “piles of garbage.”
