13. Meeting in Gresham Vineyard
After SA had us leave, Gresham Vineyard allowed us to use their facility. Because of the extra setup for our service and for theirs, it required more work, but the congregation helped us do the clean up. We were not required to pay any rent. After a year and a half, the Vineyard church was forced to move and we had to find a new place.
14. Spiritual warfare
During this period I began leading some of our congregation through warfare prayer. This was to free them from demonic attacks that came as a result of addiction or mental illness. This warfare prayer was in the context of counseling sessions and was very effective. People were getting freed from the things that were attacking them, although it rarely freed people from the drive toward addictions. We learned that spiritual warfare is often the missing component in freeing people from addiction and mental illness.
15. Tracts
In every meeting I began to develop a tract for the Scripture reading and a tract for the sermon. Some people would take them, others would leave them. But they could be collected and then given to others in other contexts. After a period of years, after most people stopped taking the tracts, I didn’t make so many of the ones for the sermons, only about ten or so for those who wanted to study it more. I learned that in a semi-literate culture, the written word isn’t very significant, except in an oral context.
16. Meeting in Park
After leaving the Gresham Vineyard building at the beginning of winter we met outside in the park. By the time we got the food to the park, it was sometimes cold. And it was cold enough that few people wanted to stay for a service. During the meal we would have a few songs sung, and then we prayed for people’s requests. We learned that to do our ministry fully, we really needed a building.
17. “Solid State” meeting
Through a contact of one of our church members, we found a building right near downtown Portland, about twenty miles away from where we were currently meeting. On the one hand, we were able to meet there both Saturdays and Sundays (our meetings were only on Saturdays up to this point), but the majority of those who participated in the meal only were in Gresham and it was too difficult for them to come on their own. I would drive our large van out to Gresham on Saturdays and pick up 8 to 10 people and then bring them to Portland for the afternoon. The new facilities allowed us to really expand the people we were ministering to, as we were so much closer to many more homeless folks and more housing for the mentally ill. We would have thirty people a day participate in our services, and more than that come for our meals. The facility itself was problematic, having very little lighting and the sewer would back up. But we were able to be there for two years before the owners closed us down. We learned that we needed more than one meeting place.
18. Picking up people from State hospital
Early on, we had one person coming from the State mental health hospital. He invited a friend to come and soon many people were calling to come to church from the State hospital. The hospital chaplains didn’t want us doing this, for they felt that we were undermining their ministry (which we had no intention of doing). As long as people called, we picked them up. This continued for five years until the word of mouth gave out. Most of those we picked up were either moved out of the area, or we still have contact with them.
19. Prayer and fasting for the Holy Spirit
While in the Solid State building, I took a season of Lent and encouraged the congregation to pray and to fast for the Holy Spirit. I knew that we needed a powerful move of the Holy Spirit to help us be healed from our mental health issues and from addiction. However, only a couple of people took this step with me, and we didn’t experience a strong move of the Holy Spirit. Yet.
20. Community House
While at the Solid State building, my family was losing our housing. We had an apartment in Gresham that many of the homeless there visited. The new owner of the building, who was trying to revitalize the apartments, gave us a 30 day notice. Without any deposit or hope of finding another apartment large enough for us all for the same rent, I sent out an urgent prayer request over email to two people. In two days, we received a phone call from an individual who wanted to purchase us a house. Within two months we were in a house near downtown Portland with six bedrooms, fully paid for.
21. Addiction help
Years before, we had already taken in one individual to live with us who was struggling with addiction. If we sent him out on the street, he would certainly have returned to drugs, so we took him in and dealt with numerous issues (too many to list here). When our house opened, we took in a few other people who were also in recovery from drug addiction. While we had some success in helping people deal with their addictions, the toll on myself and my wife was very high as far as stress and trying to teach people how to live in community.
22. Mentally ill in house
We also took in some folks who had serious mental health issues, but were trying to be believers. Again, we felt it was a discipleship necessity to bring them in. But everyone who lived with us longer than a week we would have them serve the church and the house for a total of ten hours a week, in lieu of rent. The Lord also allowed us to provide food for all of these folks. Again, dealing with the variety of issues was positive for the people living with us, but difficult on Diane and I. On the other hand, the community house became the basis for Anawim being a church run by the homeless and mentally ill
23. Four meetings at once
We were having to move every year or so to different buildings. And we were having problems keeping 30 or so mentally ill folks calm and focused for an hour. So I decided that we would have four meetings a week in different places around Portland, thus becoming a cell church, and so naturally keeping the meetings down to about 15 to 20 people per meeting. This cell group structure proved to be very beneficial for our community, causing it to grow to twice or three times the size I imagined. We meet in North Portland (at our new home), downtown Portland, SE Portland and again in Gresham.
24. Church in basement/garage
One of the meetings was in our home. This meeting was made up of mostly the people we would pick up from the State hospital. At first we met in our basement and then we met in our renovated garage. One of the difficulties was that the State hospital wouldn’t allow some of the men to come to our house if they were labeled as sexual preditors because we had children in our house. After the folks from the hospital stopped calling after a couple years, others also stopped coming for different reasons, one of which is that the garage was too compact. So we held the Sunday meeting on hiatus for a while until we could find another meeting place.
25. Meeting in day shelter
Another opportunity arose when I was asked at this same time to have a Bible study at a day shelter in downtown Portland. This facility is right across the street from a mental health housing complex. We give a hot meal for a half hour, had the Bible study for an hour and then offer more food for another half hour. The meeting had many new people and grew from 10 to 50 people. However, this meeting never really became a community, as the others had. People would come and go over time. However, because of our initial ministry in this place, two other ministers have come to the day shelter, providing Christian community. Our meeting in this place will cease in another month so we may begin a new ministry.
26. Retreat
In connection with this day shelter, I began offering leadership at their annual spiritual retreat for the homeless in downtown Portland. This provides some homeless with an opportunity to get out of the city and to focus on the Lord in a way they can’t in a stressful urban setting. This has proved a good time for some of our folks to get baptized as well.
27. Gresham meeting
The second meeting we began at this time was a regrouping of our Gresham meeting that we had begun with. I went back to Peace Mennonite who agreed to have us return to them after many years gone. Because they saw that our ministry really was successful, they decided to have us come back. So we meet in Peace Mennonite every Saturday afternoon, offering a meal, showers and clothes to those in need, as well as counsel, basic health care and a worship service. We have up to 50 people a week.
28. Barbeque
Peace Mennonite had a BBQ every year, which they graciously invited Anawim to participate in. While considered an outreach event, it was really an event to allow people in Anawim and those in Peace to interact and to fellowship. It has been an excellent experience for the two churches to connect.
29. Sunnyside meeting
I was invited by another meal to hold a Bible study at their meal. I would open the meal with a short Bible teaching and prayer and then we would have a longer Bible study during the meal in an adjoining room. The Bible study has minimal attendance—perhaps 5 to 10 people a week—but up to a hundred participate in the “mini service” we have at the opening of the meal. For many people, it is the only experience of God they will have all week. We also have a lot of opportunity to pray for people’s needs and see healings and deliverances happen there.
This part covers Anawim history from 2000-2004
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
A Homeless Woman Vindicated
Yesterday, Mary MacQuire, a homeless woman in Gresham (and a
participant in Anawim) won a case against the city of Gresham and a
Gresham police officer against brutality.
Two years ago, Mary was beaten by a police officer twice her size and
tazed four times in succession by a tazer that has been declared
illegal in many countries and cities in the United States. This was
done without any charge being given against her and without any
threat
being posed to the police officer.
The jury, finding that Mary was brutalized simply because she was
homeless, awarded her with 80 thousand dollars.
Please pray for Mary that she would use the money wisely, to get her
and her mother and sister into secure housing.
Pray for the police officer that he would learn the compassion of
Jesus for those in need.
And pray for Gresham, that they would realize that homeless people
are
people and need to be treated the same as everyone else.
participant in Anawim) won a case against the city of Gresham and a
Gresham police officer against brutality.
Two years ago, Mary was beaten by a police officer twice her size and
tazed four times in succession by a tazer that has been declared
illegal in many countries and cities in the United States. This was
done without any charge being given against her and without any
threat
being posed to the police officer.
The jury, finding that Mary was brutalized simply because she was
homeless, awarded her with 80 thousand dollars.
Please pray for Mary that she would use the money wisely, to get her
and her mother and sister into secure housing.
Pray for the police officer that he would learn the compassion of
Jesus for those in need.
And pray for Gresham, that they would realize that homeless people
are
people and need to be treated the same as everyone else.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Anawim-- Trials and Errors, Part 1
Below, I will describe a number of the “experiments” we, as a ministry to the homeless, attempted and their outcomes. As they apply, I will describe the issue we saw, the experiment we attempted, the challenges that came up, our failures, our success and what lesson we learned.
1. Meal with discussions
We opened our apartment for daily meals with the homeless. We were not interested in preaching, but in listening and exploring the culture of the homeless, learning their language and understanding their life experiences as they described it. We would pray with people and sometimes give counsel, but we rarely preached the gospel. A challenge was how much time this took away from our family. We learned that we needed to have a separate family night once a week. This program was so successful that we incorporate a meal with fellowship in every meeting we have.
2. Meal in Church
We transferred our ministry in our home to a church context, having a meal first once then twice a week. For our first meal, we advertised with a notice on telephone poles within a one mile radius of the church. From that time on, we relied only on word of mouth. We invited other church people to eat with the homeless and needy and eat with them, even as we had done. Most church folks, we found, were very uncomfortable conversing with the homeless and they felt that people weren’t “getting converted” fast enough. Although the meals were bringing many people into the church, the church after a number of years closed the program down because of what they saw as a lack of spiritual opportunity.
3. Becoming homeless/poor
At the time of the church meal, I was called by the Lord to quit my job, have my family and I become homeless living in other’s living rooms and depend on God without an income, focusing all my energy on ministering to the homeless. Financially, we did not ask for donations, but waited on the Lord for what He would provide for us. This gave us opportunity to learn from the homeless community how to live like the homeless, eating meals where they ate and learning to get by as people of the lowest income.
4. Bible Study
During one of the meals, I began a bible study in a separate room. Every week there were very few who were interested, and even those who came didn’t show a lot of interest in the study. After a few months, I discontinued it.
5. Inviting homeless to church
During the church meal, we would invite some to participate in the main service of the church on Sunday morning. Most would claim that they had nothing good to wear, and others would just say they couldn’t, without giving reason why. A few did join the service, but most of them were either uncomfortable or acted inappropriately for the middle class context. But the church did speak to a few and they still attend the services to this day. The church eventually asked us to stop our ministry among the homeless community.
6. Becoming our own congregation
After no longer having a place for our homeless ministry, we decided to continue our meals but to add a church service and to make the homeless ministry its own congregation. We began meeting in a Salvation Army building once a week, and had a service after an hour of our meal. Most people left at first when the service began, but as time went on, more and more people began to stay. Today, we have about 40 people a week coming to the service in Gresham.
7. Meeting in Salvation Army
Salvation Army offered us a small building to serve our meals and to have our service in. During that time on occasion if they had a project, they would try to cancel our ministry with only a day’s notice. Eventually they gave us a 30 day notice. We learned that we should meet in a church that understood and appreciated our vision of how to help the homeless.
8. Meals with service
In SA, we had worship that would come from the meal. At first we switched chairs to be more like a congregation, but eventually we found that people were more comfortable sitting at tables. Giving an opportunity to worship after a meal was good in two ways: first of all it gave many an opportunity to worship God who otherwise wouldn’t take the opportunity (many begin participating in worship because they felt they needed to “pay” for their meal). Secondly, people felt that we were more noble than the missions and churches who forced people to sit though a service to get a meal.
9. Scripture
Scripture was central to our worship. We would have a long Scripture reading in every service, containing a variety of scriptures and the sermons would always be focused on Scripture, not themes or stories, although the points were pretty basic. Given the basic conservative viewpoint of the homeless community, this was a big positive. And it also gave many of the folks to read Scripture and so participate.
10. Sermon participation
Because many who attended the service were mentally ill or socially handicapped, many would feel free to “talk back” or even argue with the preacher. So we incorporated discussions during the sermon time. This gives me an opportunity to get instant feedback from the congregation to see what they are understanding and to even change the direction of the sermon in the middle if necessary.
11. Music
With our worship we had a music leader who would very simply play guitar and lead people in choruses and short hymns. Few people would actually sing, but culturally it felt more like a service and less like a Bible Study. Eventually, it was said by some that they would find themselves singing the music all week long and the Lord spoke to them through the songs. Music is significant in about half of our ministry times right now.
12. Donations
Many homeless mentioned how the “passing of a plate” felt like a requirement to give to the church and was a very negative experience for them. We decided not to ask for money, so we wouldn’t be equated with greedy preachers or churches. This meant that our ministry was supported by donations without being asked. Some from both inside and outside the congregation gave as God’s Spirit led them. We also had some who offered us food and clothing on a regular basis. Many of these donors continue to provide for our meals to this day. We learned that the ministry can be provided for by just requesting God.
Above are the earliest years, from 1995-2000.
1. Meal with discussions
We opened our apartment for daily meals with the homeless. We were not interested in preaching, but in listening and exploring the culture of the homeless, learning their language and understanding their life experiences as they described it. We would pray with people and sometimes give counsel, but we rarely preached the gospel. A challenge was how much time this took away from our family. We learned that we needed to have a separate family night once a week. This program was so successful that we incorporate a meal with fellowship in every meeting we have.
2. Meal in Church
We transferred our ministry in our home to a church context, having a meal first once then twice a week. For our first meal, we advertised with a notice on telephone poles within a one mile radius of the church. From that time on, we relied only on word of mouth. We invited other church people to eat with the homeless and needy and eat with them, even as we had done. Most church folks, we found, were very uncomfortable conversing with the homeless and they felt that people weren’t “getting converted” fast enough. Although the meals were bringing many people into the church, the church after a number of years closed the program down because of what they saw as a lack of spiritual opportunity.
3. Becoming homeless/poor
At the time of the church meal, I was called by the Lord to quit my job, have my family and I become homeless living in other’s living rooms and depend on God without an income, focusing all my energy on ministering to the homeless. Financially, we did not ask for donations, but waited on the Lord for what He would provide for us. This gave us opportunity to learn from the homeless community how to live like the homeless, eating meals where they ate and learning to get by as people of the lowest income.
4. Bible Study
During one of the meals, I began a bible study in a separate room. Every week there were very few who were interested, and even those who came didn’t show a lot of interest in the study. After a few months, I discontinued it.
5. Inviting homeless to church
During the church meal, we would invite some to participate in the main service of the church on Sunday morning. Most would claim that they had nothing good to wear, and others would just say they couldn’t, without giving reason why. A few did join the service, but most of them were either uncomfortable or acted inappropriately for the middle class context. But the church did speak to a few and they still attend the services to this day. The church eventually asked us to stop our ministry among the homeless community.
6. Becoming our own congregation
After no longer having a place for our homeless ministry, we decided to continue our meals but to add a church service and to make the homeless ministry its own congregation. We began meeting in a Salvation Army building once a week, and had a service after an hour of our meal. Most people left at first when the service began, but as time went on, more and more people began to stay. Today, we have about 40 people a week coming to the service in Gresham.
7. Meeting in Salvation Army
Salvation Army offered us a small building to serve our meals and to have our service in. During that time on occasion if they had a project, they would try to cancel our ministry with only a day’s notice. Eventually they gave us a 30 day notice. We learned that we should meet in a church that understood and appreciated our vision of how to help the homeless.
8. Meals with service
In SA, we had worship that would come from the meal. At first we switched chairs to be more like a congregation, but eventually we found that people were more comfortable sitting at tables. Giving an opportunity to worship after a meal was good in two ways: first of all it gave many an opportunity to worship God who otherwise wouldn’t take the opportunity (many begin participating in worship because they felt they needed to “pay” for their meal). Secondly, people felt that we were more noble than the missions and churches who forced people to sit though a service to get a meal.
9. Scripture
Scripture was central to our worship. We would have a long Scripture reading in every service, containing a variety of scriptures and the sermons would always be focused on Scripture, not themes or stories, although the points were pretty basic. Given the basic conservative viewpoint of the homeless community, this was a big positive. And it also gave many of the folks to read Scripture and so participate.
10. Sermon participation
Because many who attended the service were mentally ill or socially handicapped, many would feel free to “talk back” or even argue with the preacher. So we incorporated discussions during the sermon time. This gives me an opportunity to get instant feedback from the congregation to see what they are understanding and to even change the direction of the sermon in the middle if necessary.
11. Music
With our worship we had a music leader who would very simply play guitar and lead people in choruses and short hymns. Few people would actually sing, but culturally it felt more like a service and less like a Bible Study. Eventually, it was said by some that they would find themselves singing the music all week long and the Lord spoke to them through the songs. Music is significant in about half of our ministry times right now.
12. Donations
Many homeless mentioned how the “passing of a plate” felt like a requirement to give to the church and was a very negative experience for them. We decided not to ask for money, so we wouldn’t be equated with greedy preachers or churches. This meant that our ministry was supported by donations without being asked. Some from both inside and outside the congregation gave as God’s Spirit led them. We also had some who offered us food and clothing on a regular basis. Many of these donors continue to provide for our meals to this day. We learned that the ministry can be provided for by just requesting God.
Above are the earliest years, from 1995-2000.
What's Wrong With Asking What's Wrong?
An excellent article by the Chalmer's Center, educating ministers to the poor:
http://www.chalmers.org/staging/mandate/april_2008/from_the_director.php
http://www.chalmers.org/staging/mandate/april_2008/from_the_director.php
The Use of Privilege
How can you not use your privilege for your own benefit. That negates the inherent nature of privilege as a social entity and dynamic and (wrongly) reduces it to an individual choice dynamic.
If you are white, you will receive preferential treatment by store clerks, loan officers, real estate agents, police/military and other white people generally.
The intention of using your privilege as a white person to do some kind of good work does not prevent or mitigate this at all. Privilege is usually a social structure that is used whether one likes it or not, precisely because it is social and not individual.
Things like not working for a company that cheats people their wages. This isn’t possible. All companies cheat people of their wages. If I am selling a chair, I must pay my employee that makes the chair less than the value of the chair my employee produces. I must keep some of the value she/he produces for myself. In fact, I must keep a lot of the value my employees produce in making the chairs. That is how business owners become rich while their employees producing the value just make ends meet.
Having the privilege to run a business under capitalism is by definition exploitation.
In this sense, and I believe this is the correct frame to analyze this, most of the list is negated in its practical application to the real world. The impulse is admirable, though.
-Inegmar
I’d like to think this discussion is more than an admirable impulse.
It’s one thing to use power. We all do it. It’s the way our world works. It’s quite another thing to use your power at the expense of shaming or degrading someone else. THAT is what Paul is talking about.
It’s a tall order, that is for sure. But, it is the call we have. So, I plan to work towards that “admirable” goal.
-Amy
Inegmar, it seems that you are taking an unnessessarily fatalistic approach to privilege.
First of all, I want to reiterate that privilege is something that is shared by most people, just in different areas. Perhaps one person is of color, but male, thus he has both privilege and oppression. Another person is female but educated. Another person is wealthy but homosexual. Another person is poor but a citizen of the U.S. All of these people have a mix of both privilege and oppression– inate power and inate weakness. Thus they can understand both the mourning of oppression and the power of the oppressed, if they can see past the blinders of their culture which is communicating to them that they are “normal” or they are “victim”. For the most part, we all have power, we all have experienced loss.
Secondly, there are two types of privilege: that which we have, inately, and that which we use. I can’t help being white, and that naturally gives me certain privilege from birth. Most of us on this forum were born as citizens of the U.S. and that gives us an authority and a power that is there, wherever in the world we go. While this privilege gives us inate power, we can show that this power can be marginalized, if we choose it to. I could go to Bangladesh as a U.S. citizen and become a window washer with the poorest in Dhaka. My privilege is not gone– I am not any less an American or white– but over time I can show that my privilege is marginalized. I am contextualizing my inate privilege in a manner to associate with the lowest and to become one of them.
But there are other kinds of privilege that we can use– education, relationships with the powerful, finances, political power, inheritance, authority etc. The opportunity for this privilege is also innate, but this form of privilege is able to be directed. Our culture trains us to use this privilege in order to establish a “normal” existence, i.e. a privileged one. This is using privilege for our own benefit.
The Bible, however, teaches us that it is our responsibility to use what privilege we have to create justice, to create equity, to stop oppression, to create opportunities for those who do not have privilege.
And this, as I see it, is a choice, the choice that the Bible gives us. We can live to be consumers, live for the increase of our family and thus increase privilege for our generations after us. Or we can surrender the use of our privilege and give the use of it to those who do not have.
We cannot change who we are. But we can change who we serve.
Steve K
If you are white, you will receive preferential treatment by store clerks, loan officers, real estate agents, police/military and other white people generally.
The intention of using your privilege as a white person to do some kind of good work does not prevent or mitigate this at all. Privilege is usually a social structure that is used whether one likes it or not, precisely because it is social and not individual.
Things like not working for a company that cheats people their wages. This isn’t possible. All companies cheat people of their wages. If I am selling a chair, I must pay my employee that makes the chair less than the value of the chair my employee produces. I must keep some of the value she/he produces for myself. In fact, I must keep a lot of the value my employees produce in making the chairs. That is how business owners become rich while their employees producing the value just make ends meet.
Having the privilege to run a business under capitalism is by definition exploitation.
In this sense, and I believe this is the correct frame to analyze this, most of the list is negated in its practical application to the real world. The impulse is admirable, though.
-Inegmar
I’d like to think this discussion is more than an admirable impulse.
It’s one thing to use power. We all do it. It’s the way our world works. It’s quite another thing to use your power at the expense of shaming or degrading someone else. THAT is what Paul is talking about.
It’s a tall order, that is for sure. But, it is the call we have. So, I plan to work towards that “admirable” goal.
-Amy
Inegmar, it seems that you are taking an unnessessarily fatalistic approach to privilege.
First of all, I want to reiterate that privilege is something that is shared by most people, just in different areas. Perhaps one person is of color, but male, thus he has both privilege and oppression. Another person is female but educated. Another person is wealthy but homosexual. Another person is poor but a citizen of the U.S. All of these people have a mix of both privilege and oppression– inate power and inate weakness. Thus they can understand both the mourning of oppression and the power of the oppressed, if they can see past the blinders of their culture which is communicating to them that they are “normal” or they are “victim”. For the most part, we all have power, we all have experienced loss.
Secondly, there are two types of privilege: that which we have, inately, and that which we use. I can’t help being white, and that naturally gives me certain privilege from birth. Most of us on this forum were born as citizens of the U.S. and that gives us an authority and a power that is there, wherever in the world we go. While this privilege gives us inate power, we can show that this power can be marginalized, if we choose it to. I could go to Bangladesh as a U.S. citizen and become a window washer with the poorest in Dhaka. My privilege is not gone– I am not any less an American or white– but over time I can show that my privilege is marginalized. I am contextualizing my inate privilege in a manner to associate with the lowest and to become one of them.
But there are other kinds of privilege that we can use– education, relationships with the powerful, finances, political power, inheritance, authority etc. The opportunity for this privilege is also innate, but this form of privilege is able to be directed. Our culture trains us to use this privilege in order to establish a “normal” existence, i.e. a privileged one. This is using privilege for our own benefit.
The Bible, however, teaches us that it is our responsibility to use what privilege we have to create justice, to create equity, to stop oppression, to create opportunities for those who do not have privilege.
And this, as I see it, is a choice, the choice that the Bible gives us. We can live to be consumers, live for the increase of our family and thus increase privilege for our generations after us. Or we can surrender the use of our privilege and give the use of it to those who do not have.
We cannot change who we are. But we can change who we serve.
Steve K
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Fear of the Other
It is a basic principle for all creatures to fear that which is the same size or bigger than them, but different.
I have some pretty large rats in my backyard, and a cat. If the cat sees a rat, he will just let it pass by without even flinching, because they are about the same size. While the cat is made to attack creatures, they are only those that are smaller than them.
But then my cat saw an advantage. The rat was focused on something else for a while, ignoring the cat. So the cat saw that he had the upper hand and attacked the rat, wounding it, playing with it and then killing it.
Thus:
Difference and equal power equates fear.
Fear leads to anxiety
Anxiety seeks advantage over fear.
Anxiety attacts the object of fear.
Those of other race not only look different, but more importantly, they hold to different mores and cultural presuppositions than one. Because those of other race have a population that could potentially harm one’s own race, and it is different, the other race is an object of fear. "They might insist that we follow their ways."-- this translates into core racist language "They have taken over our cities"; "They have conspired to control us economically."; "They will blemish our civilization." These are all statements of anxiety.
Those in fear/anxiety will then seek an advantage-- economically, militarily, politically, etc-- to make themselves "bigger". Once they feel safe, they will attack that which caused them fear. This is primarily to give them and their society freedom from the anxiety they have been feeling. Once the object of anxiety is completely subdued or destroyed, then the original society can feel safe.
This is the pattern you can find in Nazi Germany, in Israel/Palestine and in Rwanda. And it is the basic pattern of the relationship between the homeless and the middle class. There is fear between the social groups. The homeless fear the middle classes power over them. The middle class fear the homeless' violence and create myths about the homeless due to their ignorance. The middle class say that the homeless are more prone to drugs, alcohol, mental illness and violence. For the most part, however, this is not true.
So when young people and the police attack the homeless, it is for their own protection. They fear, thus they must attack in order to create security.
If we want to be rid of racial/cultural/social prejudice, we need to create opportunities for open relationship between the opposing groups. In familiarity and relationship, fear disappears. Once both sides recognize the other as humans with needs and desires like them, there is the possibility to compromise for the sake of peace for both sides.
I have some pretty large rats in my backyard, and a cat. If the cat sees a rat, he will just let it pass by without even flinching, because they are about the same size. While the cat is made to attack creatures, they are only those that are smaller than them.
But then my cat saw an advantage. The rat was focused on something else for a while, ignoring the cat. So the cat saw that he had the upper hand and attacked the rat, wounding it, playing with it and then killing it.
Thus:
Difference and equal power equates fear.
Fear leads to anxiety
Anxiety seeks advantage over fear.
Anxiety attacts the object of fear.
Those of other race not only look different, but more importantly, they hold to different mores and cultural presuppositions than one. Because those of other race have a population that could potentially harm one’s own race, and it is different, the other race is an object of fear. "They might insist that we follow their ways."-- this translates into core racist language "They have taken over our cities"; "They have conspired to control us economically."; "They will blemish our civilization." These are all statements of anxiety.
Those in fear/anxiety will then seek an advantage-- economically, militarily, politically, etc-- to make themselves "bigger". Once they feel safe, they will attack that which caused them fear. This is primarily to give them and their society freedom from the anxiety they have been feeling. Once the object of anxiety is completely subdued or destroyed, then the original society can feel safe.
This is the pattern you can find in Nazi Germany, in Israel/Palestine and in Rwanda. And it is the basic pattern of the relationship between the homeless and the middle class. There is fear between the social groups. The homeless fear the middle classes power over them. The middle class fear the homeless' violence and create myths about the homeless due to their ignorance. The middle class say that the homeless are more prone to drugs, alcohol, mental illness and violence. For the most part, however, this is not true.
So when young people and the police attack the homeless, it is for their own protection. They fear, thus they must attack in order to create security.
If we want to be rid of racial/cultural/social prejudice, we need to create opportunities for open relationship between the opposing groups. In familiarity and relationship, fear disappears. Once both sides recognize the other as humans with needs and desires like them, there is the possibility to compromise for the sake of peace for both sides.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
A Prison of Freedom
I've been lately thinking about homelessness as freedom, but a freedom one is forced to partake in. Sure, no one can tell you what to do or what to do with your money and there are fewer responsibilities, but almost every homeless person I know would be happy to limit their freedom some if only they could have a job or a place to store their stuff, or the chance to see their children. But, more often than not, they aren't given the choice to limit their freedom so they can experience more of what they want in their lives.
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