I’ve had a few interlinked thoughts and challenges recently; I hope to make sense of them as I put them down on paper (or at least up on a screen). The first challenge came on Christmas Eve when I was in London to meet the South African to go to the Carol Service at St Pauls; as I was walking through a subway linking Bank underground station to street level (NB: don’t arrange to meet someone at Bank station if you’ve never been there before because you will find that there are about nine exits from the station to the street) I saw a homeless man in his sleeping bag. Now this sight isn’t unusual throughout most of London’s subways however what happened next really challenged me. A woman had stopped by the man – presumably to give him money – with her two young daughters (about 4 years old) and was chatting to him whilst her girls were playing with the dog. Maybe that’s not weird to anyone else, but it’s definitely weird to me. Number one, my parents always dragged us past homeless people in the subway (usually as far as possible on the other side of the tunnel as if they were about to mug us at any moment), number two, we were always kept well away from dogs on the street, whether they were the Queen’s corgis (though I can’t say we bumped into them all that often!), a bulldog owned by a greasy-haired man covered in tattoos or the sickly kind often sitting with homeless men at the edge of the street. My parents avoid homeless people themselves, and would never let us, not their little, fragile princess, anywhere near them. Is that just me? Were anyone else’s parents like that? Was I just hideously overprotected or is there some kind of basis to my parents’ seemingly paranoid fear of those living on the streets of London?
So when I saw this fearless, very middle class, woman chatting to a homeless man whilst her kids were literally all over his dog like it was the next-door neighbour’s poodle I was very surprised. Clearly not everyone fears these people as I have been taught to. As a result of my parents actions I avoid eye-contact with homeless people at all costs and often try to walk as far away as physically possible from them whilst trying to remain a suitably casual demeanour.
Maybe part of my parents’ fear is due to the fact that my sister was bitten by a dog when she was only a few years old and has twelve stitches and a rather nasty scar to prove it. However she wasn’t bitten by a crazy dog roaming the city streets, she was bitten by a dog belonging to my grandpa’s neighbours. A well-trained, well-bred golden retriever living in middle-class suburbia was her attacker. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has been attacked by a dog in the street or mugged by a homeless person. I think these kind of ‘attacks’ are very few and far between, so why is there such fear and paranoia surrounding homeless people? I know many people who just walk past them – they don’t even notice their existence anymore, I guess you become numb to it if you see them everyday. Also, partly, I think people don’t want to admit that in 2009 there are still people living on the brink of starvation, their only possessions those that can fit into the blue duffle bag that they rest their head on and guard with their lives. People don’t want to admit that this ‘problem’ still exists, that people still suffer in the Western world in this way because that means they would have to do something about it. Admitting to the problem only slightly precedes a call to action and to actually stepping up to the challenge and I think very few people are willing to do that. Also, by noticing these people, viewed as the very dregs of society, one must realise how lucky we are. How much we have when so many have so little and I don’t think people want to take on the guilt associated with that.
What are your thoughts? Have I got it all wrong?
Challenged on Christmas Eve,
Blue Eyes xx
Romanticizing the manger where Jesus was born.
4 hours ago
