"Obama isn't from this country" and "Most homeless people are on the street by choice." Were the conclusions they wanted.
I don't play that.
It got heated both times.
Both times it got so heated we teared up.
This is why it's so important for us to not be employed by the room rental people.
I need to have my own voice.
My voice is of a benevolent carnie. One who sees the consequences of people's poor perception and conclusions.
I'm full of tricks and I know what people's motivations are almost always before they speak.
My goal is to sus out what they think, have them agree that I understand them, then offer my reality from my neutral perspective.
Then they can't backpedal saying "You didn't understand me."
I don't think I know everything, I just have the perspective of someone who has never been plugged in.
With the est. democrat lady (from Salem) we were talking about how liberal she is
and then she let go "Except the homeless, they want to be there." I say "WTF?" Then we spent 15 min. arguing about it.
Eventually she cited her source "The Tv"
I keep digging and eventually found out she was mentioning one person that she saw once on a tv news story. That person said he loved being homeless.
She threw everyone else under that bus over a tv news piece.
It was delicious watching her eyes disagreeing with what her mouth was saying.
We shook hands and moved on. I don't judge her, media is powerful. I gave her something to think about...her own words.
Months later, a lady came to rent a room who is from Orange county CA.
Some folks were sitting around a table talking about old folks enjoying cannabis.
She jumped into the convo saying she is a nurse who keeps her patients as far away from weed as possible.
Instead she touted the synthetic version "Marinol" as a better way to treat people without appealing to folks who just want to get high.
As the night went on we would discover she didn't think anything about the president or his supporters was racist "He gives everyone a chance"
She didn't believe there were racists in town and if there were they certainly don't have Trump stickers on the trucks.
She had mentioned that she was a researcher so I was glad to debate someone who would have more info than the typical simplistic bumper sticker slogans the Trump supporters typically have.
I was hoping she would give me some good complicated explanations to why she thinks this Trump disaster is a good thing.
It never happened.
She couldn't tell me why she liked Trump or why she thought Obama was such a crook. She also mentioned how France is under Sharia law
and mentioned other "hits" that were clearly from a think tank round table.
I wasn't a big Obama fan but if she doesn't know the difference, that is a huge citizen fail.
When I told her our friend was murdered on the train by a sectarian violence person associated with Trump flags she told me it was lie.
When I told her about the Hispanic yard guy who was shaken up by the "Trukka de Trump" she didn't believe me.
When I told her that the only reason I met members of the Black Panthers, was because they were guarding black children from people
in Trump trucks (who were harassing them), she said it was all propaganda.
She seemed to need to believe I was making it all up.
She insisted that she didn't believe me but I think her confirmation bias was reveling itself to her. For a person who is a Nurse and a researcher, she showed little compassion or insight.
It was delicious seeing her eyes not agree with what was coming out of her mouth. I gave her something to think about...her own words.
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There are people who choose to be homeless. They see it as being free (from responsibility). When offered housing, the response is "I am domesticated enough". I did NOT say ALL homeless. But we do have people who choose to be homeless on the streets of Portland.
ReplyDelete"order of magnitude" most people who are homeless are miserable. Counting the home bums with all the folks who got classed out by soaring rents and or debt/drug/health problems is exactly what this post is about. Most are so tortured they can't even see a way out. And you are not helping by being so judgmental without good info. Thanks for commenting. :)
Deletemy info is very good. It is based on my friendships and acquaintances with homeless who camp near me. Over a two year period. I spent mucho time with them. And I talked to dozens and dozens of homeless people in my neighborhood. I did NOT say ALL of them want to be homeless. I said we do have quite a number of "service resistant" campers in Portland. You are incorrect to deny this.
Deletehttps://www.city-journal.org/seattle-homelessness?fbclid=IwAR1-C_WsLD-sLiW8ayMECrbwtqDJ66MVdikKbcKVtsKY-J2asjtQfrXb5QM
ReplyDeleteI say to them: "Portland is spending a lot of money on homeless issues.
ReplyDeleteWhat would make your life better?" They respond with "I want to be free. I want to camp wherever I want." I say "But aren't you cold? Aren't you wet? Aren't you afraid?" And they answer "Yes, but freedom is more important." I worked hard to understand what they meant because our culture is famous for squelching other cultures. But I cannot agree with camping wherever they want and making huge sanitation messes that ARE dangerous. Nor can I agree with their claim that they have the right to take whatever they want from people who live in houses (they call us the box people). I could go on for hours and hours about what I experienced with them...the black market where you can trade a cigarette for a bicycle. The food that is left rotting everywhere.