Significant response
When poverty is unmasked and fully exposed, it reveals something about everyone in its vicinity. Are we proud of what it reveals about us?
Several years ago when I lived in Chicago and came to visit San Francisco, I was walking along Market Street in the Financial District and an image burned into my memory - 2 men in business suits chatting and laughing jovially just a few feet away from a man in tattered clothing hunched over, pushing a shopping cart bursting with belongings covered in unwashed blankets. It’s not that I hadn’t seen either scene before, but I don’t think I had ever seen them together in the same frame.
The juxtaposition of the two distinct storylines unfolding side by side in front of me, was disgusting and uncomfortable at best. I remember hoping that I would never be emotionally immune to this display of disparity.
Now that I’ve been in San Francisco for a few years now and worked in and around downtown, I have heard countless remarks about the “dirtiness” of the Tenderloin and off putting remarks about how we might not be able to walk to the office without stepping in human feces. … I understand how a person can become numb to our disturbing coexistence. It’s only natural to physically and mentally avoid this reality in order to cope with it; it doesn’t make it right.
The past couple of pandemic years have been isolating and challenging in many ways, it has also morphed my home into an ivory tower of sorts. With fewer reasons to venture out, my real-life exposure to the misfortune of homelessness was significantly reduced. As I was driving in the East Bay last week, a new image burned into my memory - I was in my car idling at a highway off-ramp red light when an older man with grey hair and a gentle face limped toward my car with his hands pressed against one other in a prayer-like fashion. For a brief moment, our eyes met and without words, he asked for help. In that same instant, there were 2 young men - maybe in their early 20s - approaching behind him, looking to get his attention. I motioned for him to turn around to greet them, and with a line of cars behind me, I began to drive away. The 2 young men were smiling and appeared to be giving him bags of food and starting a conversation.
As I left this scene in my rearview mirror, I felt hope reigniting within me. I hadn’t even noticed it had been dimmed. The moment moved me to tears as I realized I had long been focused on the “big picture” and systemic issues (in work and in life), that I lost sight of the daily occurrences that carry immense weight in their own rights. Too many times I have heard something to the effect of, “I don’t give to people on the street because it doesn’t help them long-term” or “There are bigger things we could do that help people more permanently rather than giving them money or a one-off meal.”
Actions toward systemic change are absolutely needed. But these are not the only worthwhile actions. When we say that some actions have lesser consequences than others, is it actually our own way of feeling absolved of responsibility as we walk or drive by those in need? When we affix our eyes on the “big” issues in hopes of contributing to positive change, are we turning our backs toward the very people we are trying to help?
I don’t know yet how this translates into guidance for how I act everyday, because every situation is different. What I do know is that I’m not proud of how surprised I was that the moment of kindness I witnessed between strangers, brought me to tears. It means that there were countless times before where I didn’t allow myself to feel. It is when I have no emotional response, that there tends to be no response at all.
