Please read these two descriptions of nights in a shelter:
Shelters Are For Someone Else 1
Shelters Are For Someone Else 2
However we treat the poor, that is how we treat Jesus. When Jesus or His angels come to visit us, is this how we want them to be treated?
When we establish a shelter, let us treat people with dignity and respect. This means that our context has to be one of dignity as well. Posting a hundred rules communicates something. So does insisting that people listen to a sermon before they fill their empty bellies.
We want to help, so let us help. If we want to show Jesus, then let us show love.
Showing posts with label dehumanization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dehumanization. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Lepers
Ken Loyd, a friend and fellow pastor of the homeless here in Portland had an incident with the police the other day. It wasn't that big of a deal, but some of his homeless friends were sitting on a bench which was part of a police memorial. Someone called the police who said that they were littering, and the police discovered that it wasn't really true, but they still told the homeless not to sit on the memorial. They weren't harming the memorial and there is a bench there to sit on.
Ken was musing about this and he said, "I realized from this that from their perspective because the homeless were touching the memorial they made it unclean. Now I understand that we do have an unclean class in our society. The homeless are the lepers of our society."
Creating an unclean class is a stage in dehumanizing them.
Ken was musing about this and he said, "I realized from this that from their perspective because the homeless were touching the memorial they made it unclean. Now I understand that we do have an unclean class in our society. The homeless are the lepers of our society."
Creating an unclean class is a stage in dehumanizing them.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Fear of the Police
Jack Collins walked out of the bathroom in Hoyt Arboretum all bloody, holding an X-acto knife. In seeing this come at him in surprise, Officer Jason Walters says, "I was just totally surprised 'cause I didn't expect a bloody guy holding a knife to open the door, and it took a second, a moment to really register what was going on." Walters had no back up there, and he ruled out the use of pepper spray, his baton or Taser. So he shot Jack four times, and Jack was left to bleed to death.
Dehumanization of a kind of person-- like the homeless Jack Collins-- leads to people deciding that they should not be treated as a real person, but as an immediate threat. There was no real threat to Officer Walters. I have been in a similar situation myself, facing down a person holding a knife. I had no gun, no baton, no Taser. I just went right up to the person and talked to him, in gentleness. There are only two differences between Officer Walters and me: I was not afraid, and I did not have a gun to enact against any fear I might have.
I don't want you to think that I am trying to demean Officer Walters. He reacted as he has been trained to react, and he did so rightly. He yelled at Mr. Collins a number of times to drop the knife and Mr. Collins did not. His training tells him to shoot anyone with a weapon who could have been a danger to himself or others. So Mr. Collins was shot. No, my fault is with the system.
What kind of a system trains officers to shoot instead of using other options. Officer Walters, if he felt that he was endangered, could have backed up-- as Mr. Collins was in no condition to move quickly-- and used his Taser from a safe distance. The officer could have called for backup and waited until it arrived. Instead, he used force that was dangerous. Mr. Collins was near the door of the Arboretum-- if the officer had missed, he could have shot an innocent person by accident. But his training told him to shoot and so he did. This training is irresponsible.
The other indictment of the system I have is connected to another case involving a homeless person and a police officer. In that case, the police officer was also startled and afraid, according to his testimony, and so he tased a woman half his size four times, after she was clearly subdued. Fear is the emotion that most readily leads to violence-- not anger. Fear makes one want to protect oneself or others, and would use whatever means necessary to quench the object of one's fear.
If police officers are so afraid of small women or people who are already injured, then what else are they afraid of? Black people? Perhaps homeless people in general? God forbid that these fearful officers actually deal with a gang or any group of teenage males. It is a matter of public safety to take police officers who are fearful of non-lethal situations and get them off the street. If an officer is startled so easily as to shoot someone in a situation in which they are "startled" then that officer is too easily trigger happy to be in the public interest.
If an officer is fearful, perhaps they should stay in the office, doing paperwork. Life is scary, and police work takes courage. Let the brave ones, who won't hide behind a gun, but work toward peace, do the street work.
About the shooting of Jack Collins: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/04/grand_jury_transcript_hoyt_arb.html
About the tasing of Mary McGuire: http://www.nowheretolayhishead.org/fearofthehomeless.html
Dehumanization of a kind of person-- like the homeless Jack Collins-- leads to people deciding that they should not be treated as a real person, but as an immediate threat. There was no real threat to Officer Walters. I have been in a similar situation myself, facing down a person holding a knife. I had no gun, no baton, no Taser. I just went right up to the person and talked to him, in gentleness. There are only two differences between Officer Walters and me: I was not afraid, and I did not have a gun to enact against any fear I might have.
I don't want you to think that I am trying to demean Officer Walters. He reacted as he has been trained to react, and he did so rightly. He yelled at Mr. Collins a number of times to drop the knife and Mr. Collins did not. His training tells him to shoot anyone with a weapon who could have been a danger to himself or others. So Mr. Collins was shot. No, my fault is with the system.
What kind of a system trains officers to shoot instead of using other options. Officer Walters, if he felt that he was endangered, could have backed up-- as Mr. Collins was in no condition to move quickly-- and used his Taser from a safe distance. The officer could have called for backup and waited until it arrived. Instead, he used force that was dangerous. Mr. Collins was near the door of the Arboretum-- if the officer had missed, he could have shot an innocent person by accident. But his training told him to shoot and so he did. This training is irresponsible.
The other indictment of the system I have is connected to another case involving a homeless person and a police officer. In that case, the police officer was also startled and afraid, according to his testimony, and so he tased a woman half his size four times, after she was clearly subdued. Fear is the emotion that most readily leads to violence-- not anger. Fear makes one want to protect oneself or others, and would use whatever means necessary to quench the object of one's fear.
If police officers are so afraid of small women or people who are already injured, then what else are they afraid of? Black people? Perhaps homeless people in general? God forbid that these fearful officers actually deal with a gang or any group of teenage males. It is a matter of public safety to take police officers who are fearful of non-lethal situations and get them off the street. If an officer is startled so easily as to shoot someone in a situation in which they are "startled" then that officer is too easily trigger happy to be in the public interest.
If an officer is fearful, perhaps they should stay in the office, doing paperwork. Life is scary, and police work takes courage. Let the brave ones, who won't hide behind a gun, but work toward peace, do the street work.
About the shooting of Jack Collins: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/04/grand_jury_transcript_hoyt_arb.html
About the tasing of Mary McGuire: http://www.nowheretolayhishead.org/fearofthehomeless.html
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Who Is The Alien?
I had a surreal experience yesterday. I watched District 9.
Well, watching a movie, no matter how insane, is almost never a surreal experience (Eraserhead is an exception, but I don’t necessarily recommend that to anyone, either). District 9 is a good film, using aliens who have faced a disaster who are then moved into refugee camps by people of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a way of speaking of humans inhumanity to other humans, although of different kinds. It is science fiction social commentary at its best—working at the level of a compelling story and a coherent commentary on the myopic nature of our culture.
Just before I plugged the movie in, I received the latest news in a terribly tragic story of one of the homeless community in Gresham. Mike Bighaus is a man who has been schizophrenic for years, with little or no help. Without any housing or nurses, he would go into a clinic to get his medication only as he was mentally stable enough to go through the extra effort. He knew he needed his medication. He would see things no one else could see, and sometimes had self-aggrandizing visions. He would occasionally be so irrational as to be threatening, but the homeless community knew how to deal with him, and there were few problems.
Over this last holiday season, he had failed to get his latest medication before the clinics closed for Christmas, but he already had plans to stay at his parents’ house over the holidays, so he figured all would be well. His mother was a caring nurse practitioner, and his father was retired. They would care for him.
Christmas night, he took the rifle he parents kept in their home and shot his mother to death. The police were called immediately but Mike had wandered about the Oregon community with the rifle. They blocked roads, sent out alerts, sent police cars all over the community. Many hours later Mike comes walking back home with the rifle as if nothing had happened. The police surrounded him and Mike surrendered the rifle with no resistance. He was immediately arrested.
He had his first hearing, where he was strapped down, both head and body, and his mouth gagged. He muttered throughout the arraignment, possibly not even knowing what was going on. In his second arraignment, where he was indicted for murder, he was not even present, being in the hospital for a leg infection.
Last night, I found out that the infection was one of the antibiotic resistant infections. So they amputated his leg, without consulting family. His other leg also has an infection and so they are looking to amputate this leg as well.
This was all running through my mind as I watched District 9, and I thought of the mentally ill. The mentally ill are often placed in homes or camps, apart from the rest of humanity. There are ways to solve some of their issues—granting housing where helpful medication can be offered, or providing employment that would work around their mental weaknesses—but few seem to be thinking of how the mentally ill can actually be helped as individuals. They are seen as a pathetic, stupid, dangerous group. They are rarely dangerous, and in fact, they rarely use the capacity for violence they have—they are statistically less likely to use violence than “normal” groups. But because they need some extra attention and thought, they are rather just ignored, cast aside. Eventually policies will be made against them “for their own good”, which is really for the comfort of society. If this means more end up in prison, or locked up in mental health facilities, even though preventative care could mean a semi-productive life, then so be it.
The mentally ill truly are the aliens in society. And yet the difference is, they didn’t come from a spaceship, hovering over our homes, but they are part of our own families, we grew up with them. But when they become homeless, although they’ve lived in our communities all of our lives, they become “transients.” When they are seen at soup kitchens, they become “bums” although they’ve done all they can do to survive. Even though legal medications didn’t help their ailments, or they couldn’t afford them, when they use illegal drugs to help them feel better they are “addicts.” And when they are unable to fill out the complicated paperwork for assistance from the government because of their social weaknesses or depression, it is considered that they didn’t “ask for help.”
Of course I have no sympathy for Mike being arrested. He is clearly dangerous and needs to be restrained. What I am saying is that this tragedy could have been averted, if Mike had been cared for by more than just his family. He needed a community with resources to get behind him, giving him the medications on a regular basis that he did not resist taking, and his mother could be alive today. He wouldn’t be in prison. He wouldn’t have his leg amputated because care would have been given ahead of time. Or, if he hadn’t been in jail at the time of this severe infection, they might have tried alternative treatments—of which there are many—instead of jumping to amputation.
Mike has been dehumanized. And it could be said that he deserves it because he shot his mother, and I could understand that perspective. But he was dehumanized long before this crime, when he had to live with his severe mental illness, with little or no help. When he needed assistance, he was blamed for that which he could not control.
And I think the best lesson I learned in watching District 9 at the same time of hearing of Mike’s amputation is that dehumanization of the poor and needy do not dehumanize the one being treated poorly. It ultimately makes the authorities less than human. In District 9, it is clear that it was not the aliens that were unhuman—they had very human responses to their situation. Rather it is the police, the system, the family that judges that becomes less than human.
In the case of Mike Bighaus, who is less than human? Mike, who has been struggling with his illness and left to his own devises? Or the system who ignored Mike until he had become so ill that he killed his mother? The system that takes away his legs without searching for other treatments? The system who treats Mike as little more than an animal?
I have great sympathy for Mike’s family. They didn’t know what to do with Mike and then they face this tragedy. It was Mike’s cousin, who sent me a message about his amputated leg, horrified at the treatment Mike has been given.
I also pray for this system that treats the poor like semi-human. May God teach the “justice” system how to be fully human.
Well, watching a movie, no matter how insane, is almost never a surreal experience (Eraserhead is an exception, but I don’t necessarily recommend that to anyone, either). District 9 is a good film, using aliens who have faced a disaster who are then moved into refugee camps by people of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a way of speaking of humans inhumanity to other humans, although of different kinds. It is science fiction social commentary at its best—working at the level of a compelling story and a coherent commentary on the myopic nature of our culture.
Just before I plugged the movie in, I received the latest news in a terribly tragic story of one of the homeless community in Gresham. Mike Bighaus is a man who has been schizophrenic for years, with little or no help. Without any housing or nurses, he would go into a clinic to get his medication only as he was mentally stable enough to go through the extra effort. He knew he needed his medication. He would see things no one else could see, and sometimes had self-aggrandizing visions. He would occasionally be so irrational as to be threatening, but the homeless community knew how to deal with him, and there were few problems.
Over this last holiday season, he had failed to get his latest medication before the clinics closed for Christmas, but he already had plans to stay at his parents’ house over the holidays, so he figured all would be well. His mother was a caring nurse practitioner, and his father was retired. They would care for him.
Christmas night, he took the rifle he parents kept in their home and shot his mother to death. The police were called immediately but Mike had wandered about the Oregon community with the rifle. They blocked roads, sent out alerts, sent police cars all over the community. Many hours later Mike comes walking back home with the rifle as if nothing had happened. The police surrounded him and Mike surrendered the rifle with no resistance. He was immediately arrested.
He had his first hearing, where he was strapped down, both head and body, and his mouth gagged. He muttered throughout the arraignment, possibly not even knowing what was going on. In his second arraignment, where he was indicted for murder, he was not even present, being in the hospital for a leg infection.
Last night, I found out that the infection was one of the antibiotic resistant infections. So they amputated his leg, without consulting family. His other leg also has an infection and so they are looking to amputate this leg as well.
This was all running through my mind as I watched District 9, and I thought of the mentally ill. The mentally ill are often placed in homes or camps, apart from the rest of humanity. There are ways to solve some of their issues—granting housing where helpful medication can be offered, or providing employment that would work around their mental weaknesses—but few seem to be thinking of how the mentally ill can actually be helped as individuals. They are seen as a pathetic, stupid, dangerous group. They are rarely dangerous, and in fact, they rarely use the capacity for violence they have—they are statistically less likely to use violence than “normal” groups. But because they need some extra attention and thought, they are rather just ignored, cast aside. Eventually policies will be made against them “for their own good”, which is really for the comfort of society. If this means more end up in prison, or locked up in mental health facilities, even though preventative care could mean a semi-productive life, then so be it.
The mentally ill truly are the aliens in society. And yet the difference is, they didn’t come from a spaceship, hovering over our homes, but they are part of our own families, we grew up with them. But when they become homeless, although they’ve lived in our communities all of our lives, they become “transients.” When they are seen at soup kitchens, they become “bums” although they’ve done all they can do to survive. Even though legal medications didn’t help their ailments, or they couldn’t afford them, when they use illegal drugs to help them feel better they are “addicts.” And when they are unable to fill out the complicated paperwork for assistance from the government because of their social weaknesses or depression, it is considered that they didn’t “ask for help.”
Of course I have no sympathy for Mike being arrested. He is clearly dangerous and needs to be restrained. What I am saying is that this tragedy could have been averted, if Mike had been cared for by more than just his family. He needed a community with resources to get behind him, giving him the medications on a regular basis that he did not resist taking, and his mother could be alive today. He wouldn’t be in prison. He wouldn’t have his leg amputated because care would have been given ahead of time. Or, if he hadn’t been in jail at the time of this severe infection, they might have tried alternative treatments—of which there are many—instead of jumping to amputation.
Mike has been dehumanized. And it could be said that he deserves it because he shot his mother, and I could understand that perspective. But he was dehumanized long before this crime, when he had to live with his severe mental illness, with little or no help. When he needed assistance, he was blamed for that which he could not control.
And I think the best lesson I learned in watching District 9 at the same time of hearing of Mike’s amputation is that dehumanization of the poor and needy do not dehumanize the one being treated poorly. It ultimately makes the authorities less than human. In District 9, it is clear that it was not the aliens that were unhuman—they had very human responses to their situation. Rather it is the police, the system, the family that judges that becomes less than human.
In the case of Mike Bighaus, who is less than human? Mike, who has been struggling with his illness and left to his own devises? Or the system who ignored Mike until he had become so ill that he killed his mother? The system that takes away his legs without searching for other treatments? The system who treats Mike as little more than an animal?
I have great sympathy for Mike’s family. They didn’t know what to do with Mike and then they face this tragedy. It was Mike’s cousin, who sent me a message about his amputated leg, horrified at the treatment Mike has been given.
I also pray for this system that treats the poor like semi-human. May God teach the “justice” system how to be fully human.
Monday, December 28, 2009
A Letter From A Struggling Soul
I received this email from someone who looked at the dehumanization section of the Anawim website:
http://www.nowheretolayhishead.org/dehumanization.html
He writes as follows:
Good afternoon,
My name is Wesley Flowers, and I have been homeless for the better part of the last 7 years. I have been completely dehumanised. I don't know where to go or what to do. I was in Portland for a little while in 2008, and I came across your website after reading the comments to an article that was written about me in the Mercury last year. http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/without-notice/Content?oid=837161 I never got any of my stuff back or any kind of restitution. Go figure.
I am homeless in Toledo Ohio now, crashing on the couch of a community centre in downtown that I have been helping with, but the dehumanisation process continues on a daily basis. Classism is more embedded in our society than white privilege. I have been off the streets (not sleeping outside) for almost a year, but feel more homeless than I did when I was sleeping under a bridge. I have no homeless friends now, and the people who are around me are economically privileged, and noncognizant of it and unwilling to look in that mirror. Depression is crippling at this point.
I don't know how to get the people who are around me on a regular basis to stop dehumanising me. I've lived here since March, and I can't even get anyone to want to go "out on the town" with me. I've been basically confined by circumstance to one room, and I feel just like I felt when I was homeless. I am best kept out of sight and mind. I don't know what to do or think or feel anymore. I spend all my time giving up now. It doesn't seem like there is anything left to hope for.
I stay away from the Christian places because I am gay and quite happy not expressing my faith within a Christian context, as I have experienced quite a bit of psychological abuse from Christians throughout my life. I do believe in God, but these days it feels like God doesn't believe in me. Those places around here aren't really Christian anyway, they're Monetarian.
I've lived an extremely hard life. I have had everything taken from me in the worst way possible, and in some cases multiple times. I can't take any more. I need a break. Maybe this letter is a kind of prayer. I believe prayer comes in all different forms, and I am certainly pleading my bleeding heart here. I don't know what to do. Please help me.
I just want people to recognise that I am a human being. I want people to want to spend time with me, and I want them to want me to spend time with them. But I haven't been able to remain in one place for more than 10 or 11 months at most since 2003. Every place I've been to, as soon as the newness of "the cool combat vet intelligence officer who knows everything" wears off, I'm just some depressed bum who nobody wants to be around unless it is to answer a question. Keep me in the closet and use me as a human google. But by no means ever acknowledge that I have human needs or emotions as well. My existence is not strictly intellectual, I have a body and a soul too. No one wants to look at that. Everyone changes the subject immediately.
I haven't even had enough of a moments peace in my life to even begin dealing with the shit I went through in the military, much less the emotional stuff I went through that led me to homelessness in the first place, and the things that have happened subsequently which have exacerbated that cycle.
I am completely unemployable as a result of an untreated hand injury which requires specialty care (orthopaeidic reconstructive surgery) and I have no insurance. That was the reason I came to Portland in the first place. None of the hospitals there would treat me. The thumb of my right hand is dislocated and deformed and the tendons are snapped. I am right handed. Now, my middle, ring and pinky finger are the only ones working on my right hand and I am an insurance liability for employers. I don't even know why I'm telling all this to you all. You can't really *do* anything either. I guess I just need to vent, but I've vented and vented and vented and nothing gets done ever.
I am at the point now where I feel like there is nothing for me here in Toledo either and the best I can hope for is more of the same distant tolerance dressed up as friendship that I have received all my life. I don't feel that there is anywhere left TO go for me. I've been almost everywhere in the US and am prohibited from crossing any international borders by Homeland Security as a result of my veteran/economic/political status. I dohn't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm out of options.
http://www.nowheretolayhishead.org/dehumanization.html
He writes as follows:
Good afternoon,
My name is Wesley Flowers, and I have been homeless for the better part of the last 7 years. I have been completely dehumanised. I don't know where to go or what to do. I was in Portland for a little while in 2008, and I came across your website after reading the comments to an article that was written about me in the Mercury last year. http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/without-notice/Content?oid=837161 I never got any of my stuff back or any kind of restitution. Go figure.
I am homeless in Toledo Ohio now, crashing on the couch of a community centre in downtown that I have been helping with, but the dehumanisation process continues on a daily basis. Classism is more embedded in our society than white privilege. I have been off the streets (not sleeping outside) for almost a year, but feel more homeless than I did when I was sleeping under a bridge. I have no homeless friends now, and the people who are around me are economically privileged, and noncognizant of it and unwilling to look in that mirror. Depression is crippling at this point.
I don't know how to get the people who are around me on a regular basis to stop dehumanising me. I've lived here since March, and I can't even get anyone to want to go "out on the town" with me. I've been basically confined by circumstance to one room, and I feel just like I felt when I was homeless. I am best kept out of sight and mind. I don't know what to do or think or feel anymore. I spend all my time giving up now. It doesn't seem like there is anything left to hope for.
I stay away from the Christian places because I am gay and quite happy not expressing my faith within a Christian context, as I have experienced quite a bit of psychological abuse from Christians throughout my life. I do believe in God, but these days it feels like God doesn't believe in me. Those places around here aren't really Christian anyway, they're Monetarian.
I've lived an extremely hard life. I have had everything taken from me in the worst way possible, and in some cases multiple times. I can't take any more. I need a break. Maybe this letter is a kind of prayer. I believe prayer comes in all different forms, and I am certainly pleading my bleeding heart here. I don't know what to do. Please help me.
I just want people to recognise that I am a human being. I want people to want to spend time with me, and I want them to want me to spend time with them. But I haven't been able to remain in one place for more than 10 or 11 months at most since 2003. Every place I've been to, as soon as the newness of "the cool combat vet intelligence officer who knows everything" wears off, I'm just some depressed bum who nobody wants to be around unless it is to answer a question. Keep me in the closet and use me as a human google. But by no means ever acknowledge that I have human needs or emotions as well. My existence is not strictly intellectual, I have a body and a soul too. No one wants to look at that. Everyone changes the subject immediately.
I haven't even had enough of a moments peace in my life to even begin dealing with the shit I went through in the military, much less the emotional stuff I went through that led me to homelessness in the first place, and the things that have happened subsequently which have exacerbated that cycle.
I am completely unemployable as a result of an untreated hand injury which requires specialty care (orthopaeidic reconstructive surgery) and I have no insurance. That was the reason I came to Portland in the first place. None of the hospitals there would treat me. The thumb of my right hand is dislocated and deformed and the tendons are snapped. I am right handed. Now, my middle, ring and pinky finger are the only ones working on my right hand and I am an insurance liability for employers. I don't even know why I'm telling all this to you all. You can't really *do* anything either. I guess I just need to vent, but I've vented and vented and vented and nothing gets done ever.
I am at the point now where I feel like there is nothing for me here in Toledo either and the best I can hope for is more of the same distant tolerance dressed up as friendship that I have received all my life. I don't feel that there is anywhere left TO go for me. I've been almost everywhere in the US and am prohibited from crossing any international borders by Homeland Security as a result of my veteran/economic/political status. I dohn't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm out of options.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Moving the Homeless To One Area of Town
Laguna Beach is moving all of their homeless away from the beach to a parking lot:
Homeless Plan: Ambitious or Ridiculous?
That's the same thing they do in L.A. This is why they have such a serious problem in skid row. On the one hand, it focuses the services to one area-- that's good. On the other hand, cities who enact this plan tend to spend more money policing skid row than people that don't.
The main problem I see is that it is segregation. And the problem with segregation is that it increases fear, which increases dehumanizing acts. People who are afraid of others feel freedom to do to those they fear they wouldn't do to "normal" people. This is why it's just a bad idea, overall.
Homeless Plan: Ambitious or Ridiculous?
That's the same thing they do in L.A. This is why they have such a serious problem in skid row. On the one hand, it focuses the services to one area-- that's good. On the other hand, cities who enact this plan tend to spend more money policing skid row than people that don't.
The main problem I see is that it is segregation. And the problem with segregation is that it increases fear, which increases dehumanizing acts. People who are afraid of others feel freedom to do to those they fear they wouldn't do to "normal" people. This is why it's just a bad idea, overall.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Giving Tip #6: Make Small Talk
As you give,take time to chat with the poor. Talk about the weather, ask them how they are doing, offer them luck or a prayer. Just by being positive and hopeful, you can improve a person’s life and make the well-being of everyone better.
How is this so? One of the greatest difficulties of poverty is isolation, feeling left out of society. A homeless person, a person with AIDS, a jobless person, a mentally ill person often feels that they are no longer a part of "normal people", that they have been left behind. They feel that they aren't as "worthy" as the people they see driving their cars.
To have a normal conversation with someone who has felt outcast makes them feel a part of humanity again, as if they belong. Again, this may seem like a small thing, but it can change the attitudes of the poor. And if the attitudes of the poor change, especially toward "normal" society, then they act different and eventually attitudes toward them will change as well.
How is this so? One of the greatest difficulties of poverty is isolation, feeling left out of society. A homeless person, a person with AIDS, a jobless person, a mentally ill person often feels that they are no longer a part of "normal people", that they have been left behind. They feel that they aren't as "worthy" as the people they see driving their cars.
To have a normal conversation with someone who has felt outcast makes them feel a part of humanity again, as if they belong. Again, this may seem like a small thing, but it can change the attitudes of the poor. And if the attitudes of the poor change, especially toward "normal" society, then they act different and eventually attitudes toward them will change as well.
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