Poor Perception

The following is my raw, uncensored perception of the underprivileged. Judge me how you will, but I refuse to lie about what goes on in my head, and I will acknowledge the flaws in my character as they come with honesty.

What do I think about the poor?

I grew up with two parents somehow struggling to make a living in the military, supporting two kids and one young adult. I never had nice things. In fact, I remember bursting into tears at around eleven or so, protesting our impending trip to the local thrift store. I distinctly remember my fear of being discovered- “What if I end up wearing something that one of my classmates donated?!” I wailed, “They already make fun of me, I don’t want to be the poor girl too!”

Looking back, I feel a sting of shame. My parents worked hard to make sure we lived comfortably and went to better schools than the inner city kids. Sure I didn’t get the name-brand clothes or the latest must-have toys, but I was loved and I lived in a neighborhood that I could play outside in until dusk without fear.

When I think about how much my parents sacrificed for the sake of me and my brothers, I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. We could have absolutely been “that family.” We could have moved somewhere cheaper, I could have gone to a more mediocre school, and we could have had nicer things. My parents could have opted out of the military sooner so they could stay home longer and see us grow slowly rather than suddenly. But they didn’t. Instead, they buckled down and made sure we had the same opportunities as the upper-middle class children I attended school with.

When I see the homeless or the poor, they enter a filtration system in my head. I log their mannerisms, speech, intellect, age, ethnicity, gender, clothing, whether or not they smell, eye contact, work ethic if I can tell, and initial emotional and psychological capacity. All of these things seem to process in a matter of seconds to determine how I will react or what I will think. If I perceive them as “normal,” that is to say, as socially disconnected in public as the rest of us, then I may offer what I can, if I can afford to.

The deal breaker is if “they” talk to me. The invasion of my public bubble disenchants me regardless of who is popping it, so I will not say that it is because someone is homeless that my pleasant disposition shuts off.

When I lived in San Diego, I used to pass the same gray, homeless, wheelchair-ridden Vietnam veteran almost every day on my way to the trolley station. He never said a word to me. After about a week of seeing him, I started to give him a cigarette every time I passed him. He said thanks every time, and that was it. It stroked my ego and it gave him five minutes of peace, so I suppose we both won.

Most times, when I see a homeless person, I just want to help them out. I very seldom react with hostility. My dad used to tell me that for a while, every Christmas he’d “pick one” and talk to them. He wanted to hear their story. Once he was satisfied, he’d give them a hundred bucks to get a hotel for the night and a good meal. My dad is a liar with a Superhero Complex, so I have no idea whether or not he was telling the truth, but I always thought it was a good idea just the same.

I've worked in the restaurant business since I was seventeen. Restaurants are truly deplorable places. More food goes out the back door than out the front, and it is an utter atrocity that employees are forbidden under law to hand out perfectly good food destined for the dumpster at the end of the night.

My first restaurant was renowned for their bread sticks. They were over buttered, salty things that had cholesterol practically toasted on the side. As popular as they were, it wasn't uncommon to see fifty of them go straight from the oven to the waste basket at closing. My good friend and I, disgusted, hatched a plan. As employees, we were allowed as much bread and soda as we could possibly ingest without exploding. We were free to take bread home for our families, friends, teachers, postmen, whoever, but God forbid they were the poor homeless bastards downtown. So, we took tins. Big tins. And we loaded them up in our cars and we drove downtown, a couple of nights a week, to distribute them. We didn't do it because we wanted to sooth our guilt. We did it because we were angry. We were so angry with the industry that wasted so much and gave so little back. We were angry with the system that prohibited us from openly standing up to hunger and homelessness and crediting the company from whence our contraband came. Instead, we had only our names, and our food, and our hands, and their hands, and their eyes. Most of them didn't say a word to us. Most of them didn't even look at us. For shame, I don’t know. But for the few that did look at us, I will never forget nor will I be able to ever fully express the utter thanks in their eyes. That just pissed me off even more.

I've moved around a lot over the last few years. I left an abusive household to live on the East Coast. Then I moved back to the West Coast. I've lived in a house of Juggalos, rave kids, devout Christians, disabled vets addicted to pain killers, racist drug dealers, and old lesbians who fought the good fight so that I wouldn't have to. I was homeless at one point; couch surfing, broke, and on the verge of turning to the street, before someone took me in. I've been around the block enough to know that the only way we survive is by helping people when we see them fall down, without judgment and with only the request that they pay it forward. Without that hand up, people get left in the gutter. The problem is that their are too many bodies sleeping on the street and not enough hands.

How can we as a country ostracize these strangers for the cards they were dealt? How can we punish them for being unsuccessful in a system that is setting everyone up for failure? How can we let so few and privileged cast judgment on the rest of us, and keep the entire deck under the table?

I've been seeing a lot more publicity regarding the “1% of the 1%” over the last few months. And I think it’s great that people are learning something new. But I’m so tired of talking and listening to the same statistics shuffled around and rearranged. What I want to know- and I am 100% positive that this will determine the next election- is what we plan on doing about it. Clearly, Occupy wasn’t enough. Of course not- Occupy was the vagabond megaphone and hipster horn-rimmed glasses illuminating a social issue previously camouflaged in Dior cuff links and popular news media. The problem is that the people effectively controlling this country have the cards stapled to their chests and political interests on leashes. Infiltrating the system and decimating it is about as possible as breaking into Fort Knox. There’s just no way.

So, what do I think about the poor?

The truth is, we’re all fucking poor.