The End of an Error

Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Tuxedo (1 April, 1988 - 25 October, 2008)

This is a hard post to write and it's taken me a few days to build up to it, but on Saturday afternoon, we finally had to say goodbye to a dear friend. He went peacefully, at home, curled up in my lap -- his all time favorite place to be. In the course of his long and adventurous life he charmed all who came into his company with simple gestures of affection. Total strangers visiting the house would feel a bump and look down to find him rubbing his cheeks against their legs. The moment there was a lap available, he claimed it as his, swatting away any other cat that dared encroach.

In his younger days, he was a scourge to small creatures who had the misfortune to cross his path. But he was always generous with his bounty, once leaving me an entire blackbird under the pillow of my bed.

As he aged, he grappled with kidney and pancreas problems. By last week he had gone from his fighting weight of eleven pounds to barely three. But even reduced to, literally, skin and bones, he happily curled up between the feet of Sara and me each night, purring his crackling, contented purr. Three years ago, we were sure that a particularly nasty infection would take him from us, but he defied fate. Every day since then has been, in effect, borrowed time. And he made the most of it. His last few days, especially, were good ones.

There will never be another like Tuxedo. He loved and was loved. He was our dear friend and his absence is profound. But he left behind such wonderful memories that what we feel cannot truly be called a loss. Any of us would be lucky to have the same impact.

Requiescat In Pace. We'll miss you.

Me, Me, Me, Meme

Explanation here.

Feed The Meter, Not The Homeless? Really?

When you think about it, it’s not rocket science. If you create a particular set of structural conditions, you’re going to end up with a particular set of adaptive responses. For homeless street people, shared conditions in their physical environment invariably lead to distinct and shared patterns of behavior. Take, for example, a growing trend in the public response to homelessness – charity-dedicated parking meters coupled with aggressively enforced anti-panhandling laws.

The idea is a simple one: discourage direct contributions to the homeless and, instead, encourage people to put change in retooled and specifically dedicated parking meters. Memphis, Denver, and San Francisco are among a number of cities incorporating this approach into their response to homelessness.

In Baltimore, for example, the pointer on the meter moves from “Despair” to “Hope” as a contribution is made. The monies collected go to organizations tasked with helping the homeless. City governments believe they are responding to the problem. So is this a good idea? And for whom?

Well clearly, the public are encouraged to feel better about themselves for doing this. They make a contribution that may support a meal program or a job training facility. And they don’t even need to interact with a homeless person to do it. The maintenance of this social distance, however, means that the domiciled public have even less first-hand knowledge of the homeless (a group people regularly stigmatize and know little about to begin with). This makes it easier for them to depersonalize homeless street people, and to rely instead on media-generated stereotypes and perceptions.

Additionally, charity administrators and employees who collect a salary benefit from this approach. While they provide resources to the homeless they are also economically dependent on the ongoing existence of the problem. I’m reminded of the seminal piece by Herbert Gans on the positive functions of poverty. (Though such multiplier arguments should note the parable of the broken window as well.)

Regardless, the channeling of resources away from the homeless themselves and into the hands of middlemen can perpetuate a cycle of reliance on charities, or at the very least facilitate the continued infantilization of the homeless as irresponsible and dependent.*

To be fair, there are some benefits to the homeless that cannot be created through individual contributions. Shelters, food banks, and job training programs, for example, absolutely require the support of private and public benefactors. However, direct contributions to the homeless themselves can put money and resources into the hands of people who need it most and immediately. Additionally, the proportion of a contribution that goes directly to the homeless necessarily diminishes as it passes through a system of administrators.

It is not incidental that governments, especially at the local level, seem to prefer this and similar approaches to the issue of homelessness. On one hand, they are able to assert they are addressing the problem. On the other hand, they make actual conditions on the street less conducive for survival. As a consequence, the homeless are more often displaced than helped – and will continue to be so as long as economic conditions make it harder for this high-risk group to find full-time employment.

In the end, we come back to the adaptation argument. If you make it harder for the homeless to adapt to conditions on the street they’ll respond. Sometimes that response is a desired one, such as a move toward employment opportunities or off-street shelters (assuming they exist). But sometimes the response is increased aggressive panhandling as people become desperate or a move to some other location where they continue to do what they need to do to survive. Assuming the goal is, in fact, support for some of society’s most vulnerable members, a more constructive response would include the parking meters to facilitate easy charitable contribution combined with a permissive stance toward non-aggressive begging.

*It’s interesting to note that some of the most vocal supporters of this strategy tend to be those who favor less government taxation under the claim that they, themselves, best know how to spend their money. The idea that the homeless are less capable of making that determination for themselves is consistent with the perception that most homeless street people are simply irresponsible and that their condition reflects individual failures rather than structural deficiencies in the economy or other institutions. I would simply remind these people of the fundamental attribution error and recommend C Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination. If they’re so smart, I’m sure they can put the two together.

Presentation of Self

This is the inaugural post for Goffman's Homeboy and I've been trying to come up with something insightful or witty to say. Not so much for the six readers* I'm likely to have. But for me when I come back to it in archived form years hence. At this point, however, it's just not happening. (So now it's going to be like going back and rereading that crappy norms paper I wrote in '89.)

Oh well. More and better material will follow as I grow accustomed to blogging -- like Homer Simpson digging a comfortable butt-groove in the couch. For now, maybe it's enough to just say hello, get some content up on the site, and get back to my methods chapter.

*Hello Sara, Zak, Catherine, Juan, Sarah, and Patrick