Postcard From The End Of
By Linh Dinh
Countercurrents.org
David Swanson, author of War is a Lie, declares, “Yes, I also want to say Free Mumia. In fact, I want to say Free all the prisoners. Turn the prison holding Mumia Abu-Jamal into a school and make him dean.” Now, only a white man living outside the city can even think of, “I want to say Free all the prisoners.” Most city dwellers, white, black, brown or yellow, would retch in disgust at such a statement.
The left tend to see all losers, even criminals, as merely victims of circumstance, but from the right perspective, just about any destitute person is a lazy bum who's made too many wrong decisions. To a pure leftist, one's birth traits override individual complexities, so if you were born into wealth, for example, then you're inherently guilty of, well, just about everything, but if you're black and living in a white society, then you cannot be guilty of anything, not even of racism, that most basic of human instincts. A black man doesn't have to overcome his racism, since he can't even be racist, according to many a leftist brain, but to deny such a moral agency to anyone is to see him as subhuman. One has to be a racist, or just plain stupid, to believe any man incapable of self love.
On just about every issue, immigration, race, religion or law and order, the American left has alienated itself from the lower class, one that it still pretends to represent, but the right is also out of touch, for too often, it downplays systemic reasons for individual failures. If you're relying on food stamps, for example, you must be a parasite, but the fact is, with job outsourcing and a deliberate policy by our ruling class to not just allow, but import, cheaper foreign labor, it's becoming harder by the day to put food on the table.
In April of 2000, the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate stood at 67.3%. Now, it's 62.6%. Not only are far fewer Americans employed, the current batch of jobs also pay less yet inflation has only skyrocketed, if measured honestly. One of the funniest terms in our increasingly Orwellian epoch is “core inflation index,” for it leaves out the costs of food and energy, the two core necessities of life. Heartless, our masters sure know how to laugh in our faces. In 2008, 18% of American children lived in poverty. Just seven years later, it's 22%. Housing prices are going up thanks to low interest rates, speculators and foreign buyers. Though this only shoves more destitute Americans into homeless shelters, garden sheds, garages and cars, if not under bridges and onto sidewalks, it's trumpeted by Wall Street and Washington as a heart warming sign of the recovery. The latest housing trend is tent rental in someone's backyard. For $65 a night, you can curl up in
Traveling to a poor country, Americans can be overwhelmed by the sights of beggars. Grimy children may pester you as you carve into your meat. Slumped on sidewalks, the deformed or maimed beg for their next meal. These impressions contrast sharply with the skyscrapers and gleaming boutiques that can be found now in even the most bankrupt and dysfunctional countries. Dysfunctional is not readily measurable, but debts sure are, so I'll give you just one guess. Which nation is the most bankrupt in this galaxy? The
In any case, beggars are always an indictment of a society, and their number, nature and even techniques are reflective of its condition. The March 18th, 1882 issue of the British Medical Journal has this entry, “SELF-MUTILATION IN CHINA”:
“Dr. R. A. Jamieson of
We can't know how “frequent” such self-mutilations for coins were, but it's interesting that from one “remarkable” and frankly freakish example, the writer could conclude that it “throw a light” on “the lower orders in that country.” It almost sounds like, “the lower order of that country.” Again, beggars are an indictment of a society.
In our land of fuzzy and often quite devious euphemisms, where a prisoner is a “detainee” and an illegal immigrant is just an “undocumented worker,” it's only appropriate that we don't have beggars, really, but only panhandlers. Though we have enough strange bodies on the streets, most of our beggars are remarkably normal in appearance and demeanor. Just today, I talked to Marty, a 31-year-old from
An American who's at the bottom is no less representative than Steve Jobs, though only Jobs' biography is scrutinized. In fact, since the ratio of American “losers” to “winners” has become so askew, with the losing camp swelling to include just about everybody by now, one can understand nothing by ignoring the bottom. Let's meet, then, Lisa from
“It doesn't make sense to be anywhere else, right? It doesn't make sense to be in
“No. Now that it's getting nice, it's OK to be in
“Don't they have a pretty good shelter there?”
“No, not for women.”
“Were you familiar with
“Semi.”
“It wasn't too much of a shock, right?”
“Uh-uh, I'd been here a lot in my younger years, so I'd been around and I'd seen homeless people then, so I knew where the areas were.”
“Did you come over here for music?”
“Yup, yup,” she laughed.
“That's what most people come over here for, you know, for rock shows.”
“Yup, yup.”
“Where did you go?”
“I was more into going to the Phillies games, and concerts. I was in South Philly. I went to clubs.”
“Which clubs?”
“I used to go to
“That's on
“Yup.”
“That's a nice one too!”
“Yeah. I was a normal person!”
“What kind of music were you interested in?”
“Club. I liked hip hop. Now I'm into country.”
“How old are you?”
“35.”
“I'm just wondering, you know, your generation.”
“Era.”
“So what kind of work were you doing?
“I was a secretary. I was doing billing, medical billing.”
“How long were you doing that?”
“Six years.”
“And before that?”
“Before that, I worked at a retail store. From there, I became a secretary, then from there, I ended up out here.”
“Did you have to get a degree?”
“Associate.”
“Did it cost you money?”
“Yup.”
“But you made it back.”
“Uh huh.”
“So when did it go bad?”
“Two years ago. Um, but for the first year, I was able to maintain still, and then, the last year, I just lost everything, so that's what put me out here.”
“You had an apartment in Clayton.”
“Clayton, yup. I'm actually now trying to get back up, so, and get out of here.”
“So what's the plan?”
“The plan is to get back to
“So how are you straightening things out?”
“With the help of my family, and getting a little part time job, which I'm starting Thursday.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“In Philly, in Reading Terminal Market.”
“OK, cool!”
“Yeah. It's something. It will help me get off here. I'm going to rent a room, and then from there, try to get home.”
“Was there a problem getting hired, ah, as a homeless person?”
“I didn't tell them, no. Now they know!”
“Now they do?!”
“Yeah.”
“It didn't hold them back?”
“No, they're really, really nice there.”
“Were you nervous about…”
“Yes, it's embarrassing.”
“You know, people make all kinds of assumptions.”
“I've been assumed to be everything, and no one knows anything.” We both laughed. “It's crazy. I'd rather people not say anything at all than to just be mean. There's no need for it.”
“How mean can they get?”
“Very! Yeah. They curse you out.”
“For no reason?”
“For no reason. And I don't say anything to people. I'm not sitting here asking, I'm just sitting here quietly. So they just come by and say whatever they want.”
“Like, who are the meanest people? If you can generalize a little bit. Younger, older?”
“Younger. I'd say between, like, 19 and 23, that age group. Guys.”
“But, you know, they haven't been out.”
“Exactly!”
“What do they know?”
“Exactly.”
“I wonder if it's some kind of anxiety that they feel?”
“Could be.”
“Because they haven't been tested.”
“Right! And I just don't get it, because it's always the same group of people, the same type of people, but I don't pay it any mind.”
“What do you mean the same type?”
“Like, same age group. Guys, it's always guys, never girls.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“That's so perverse!”
“Yup.”
“I mean, how do you get off insulting people you don't know?”
“Exactly! And how do you know you're not going to be sitting here one day?”
“You might not last until 35. You might be in jail or dead.”
“Exactly. You don't know what the future holds.”
“Are they black guys? White guys?”
“Black.”
“Black guys tend to be a little bit more…”
“Yup! Even to the point of kicking your cup over.”
“Black guys will do that?”
“Yup!”
“You know, I keep hearing this shit about black guys.”
“Uh huh.”
“But black women tend to be nice.”
“Yes, very. Extremely, extremely. Ninety percent of my drops come from black women.”
“You know, I keep hearing that.”
“Yup.”
“Isn't that amazing?”
“Yeah, they help immensely, immensely. It might even be ninety-five percent.”
“Wow, and they're nice to, like, white guys too?”
“Yup.”
“That's what I hear.”
“Yup, very. I don't know if it's because they feel compassion because they grew up struggling, or they didn't have things growing up, but they're the ones who help the most. White people will walk right past me and look at me like I'm dirt under their shoes.”
“Well, black women also have to take care of a lot of people.”
“Yeah.”
“A lot of them don't have husbands, right?”
“Yup, that is true.”
“And they also have to take care of people at their jobs, you know, like nursing care.”
“Yup, nursing, yeah.”
“Um, I know that Angel has Seth.”
“Uh huh.”
“Do you have a boyfriend out here?”
“Yup, right there,” and Lisa indicated with her head a man sitting across the street by the Korean owned buffet.
“So you're safe that way?”
“Yup.”
“Do men try weird shit?”
“Yeah. Everyday.”
“Everyday!”
“Uh huh,”
“In the daytime?”
“Daytime, nighttime and they think I have six heads because I say I don't do that.”
“Wow.”
“It's expected.”
“They come by and say some shit?”
“Yeah, and if you say no, they're like… They expect it. They expect that, if you're sitting out here, you're a prostitute.”
“Wow.”
“And I'm like, no, I don't do that.”
“I bet you, like, are they older guys? Middle-aged guys?”
“Forty, yeah, forty, forty-five.”
“Creepy, huh?”
“Very.”
“And what do you say?”
“I just say, no, I don't do that, and they look at me like I'm crazy. I'm like, I don't do that!”
“You should say, You're a fuckin' loser!”
“Yeah!” She laughed.
“Do you ever say that?”
“I told one guy off because he just wouldn't leave me alone. And I'm like, get away from me, you creep. Like, go get a life!”
“What did he look like? What did he look like?”
“He was, like, fifty. White.”
“Did he look, like, skanky?”
“Yeah, dirty. He looked like he was more homeless than me!”
“Well, I'm saying… He probably hasn't been laid in, like, twenty years!”
“Yeah.” We both laughed. “Probably. Yeah. Desperate. He's a weirdo. I see him every once in a while now, too, walking around, but as soon as I see him, I run the other way.”
“So what does he say?”
“Do you date?”
“Do you date?!” I cracked up.
“Yeah, do you date? No, I don't. And he'd just stand there and stare at you.”
“Stand like right there?”
“Uh huh. Yeah, he's a weirdo.”
“How is he dressed?”
“Sweat pants and a T-shirt, always, and sandals with no socks on.”
“Something goofy on the T-shirt?”
“No, just a dingy white T-shirt. It was during the winter time, and he didn't have any socks on. I remember that.”
“And he always say that?”
“Yup.”
“He doesn't vary it?”
“Nope. Just do you date?”
“I bet you hear ruder shit, right?”
“Not really, not with that. It's more like, do you date? Or, do you want to take a ride?” I cracked up. “Do you want to do that? But I've been out here for ten months with him,” meaning her boyfriend, “so a lot of people see me…”
“Did you meet your boyfriend out here?”
“No, no, we… I've been with him for fifteen years.”
“Oh wow! So what kind of work does he do?”
“He's a mechanic.”
“And you both just ran out of work?”
“Yeah. I stopped working before him, and then he got laid off. After that, we lost everything.”
“So you lost your job two years ago?”
“Yeah, and he worked for a whole ‘nother year. He worked under the table, so he wasn't able to collect unemployment.”
“How old is your boyfriend?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Wow, it's amazing, isn't it, that people in their thirties… It doesn't make any sense. I mean, Angel is in her twenties.”
“”Yeah, I think she's only 23.” Angel is actually only 22.
Lisa then told me about Eli, a 28-year-old homeless woman from
“Lisa, I'm 51, and it used to be so easy to find work. I'm telling you.”
“Now, it's a struggle.”
“I know, it's insane.”
“It is. The whole economy is terrible, and the cost of living is higher, yet you don't even make enough money to live.”
“And they're lying about all the statistics.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Unemployment. Inflation.”
“Yup. It's crazy. Even when I was younger, when I was 19 and 20, there were tons of jobs. From then until now is a huge difference, so I'm just hoping. I've got to take it step by step.”
“So how many hours will you be working?”
“Twenty, twenty-two, something to get me off here for twenty or twenty-two hours.”
Lisa and her boyfriend are hoping to move inside soon, “We're going to rent a room. It's by 22nd and, ah,
“Point Breeze.”
“Yup. So we're going to try to rent a room. We can't afford an apartment now.”
“How much is it?”
“It's about 130 a week.”
“Housing prices, too… 130 a week for a room, in fuckin' Point Breeze.”
“Yup, and it's just a room,” she chuckled.
“That's kind of a pain, ain't it? But what can you do?”
“It's better than being out here.”
I told Lisa that in 1999, I had a one-bedroom apartment in downtown
“It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. To get into an apartment, you need the first and last month's rent. You need a major chunk to get even in the door.”
“So that's hopeful, you have this job, and your boss seems nice.”
“Very. Very nice.”
“How did he know that you were homeless?”
“Well, the way I got introduced was through a regular of mine that passes me all the time. He's friends with him. At first, I didn't say anything, but my regular said, you can tell him, he's understanding, so I talked to him, and he said he'd give me a chance, and it didn't matter that I was, you know… As long as I'm a hard worker, that's what he cares about, so.” Lisa will be a cashier at her new job. “I've experience with it. I'm looking forward to it.”
“A couple more questions! What's the biggest surprise that you've found out after being out here this long? Is there something you didn't expect at all?”
“I guess. Really, it's just that… the way people treat you is the biggest surprise. I used to be the person walking by that would give a homeless person a dollar, but I didn't realize how people… It's like you're invisible. I don't know how you treat people that way? I'm still a human being.”
“And the hostility is incomprehensible.”
“Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the hatred is for. I don't know what the anger is for. I've done nothing against these people. I get that if you don't want to help me, you don't have to help me, but you don't have to walk by with such anger. That's probably the biggest surprise, how people treat, and it's not just me. It's homeless people in general. I mean, I'm pretty fortunate. I've seen people get treated a lot worse. Um, a friend of ours just got, ah, beaten and he passed away. They beat him right over here by the Dunkin' Donuts.”
“Really?!”
“Yup.”
“How old was he?”
“Forty-three-years old.”
“This happened recently?”
“Yup, this happened about a month ago. No paper, no news.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, they beat him to death. He was in a coma, and they finally got in touch with his family, and they pulled the plug and he passed away.”
“What's his name?”
“Kenny.”
“Kenny?”
“Ah, his last name, I believe, is
“And you said there was no newspaper coverage. I wonder why? It's a murder.”
“Yeah. There were actually three beatings of three homeless people.”
“Within a month?”
“Within a week. One of them was left at the level of a five-year-old, Kenny passed away and the other guy, they put into a rehab facility. He's an alcoholic, and he got beaten so badly, they didn't want to put him back on the streets, so they put him into a rehab. Three, within a week.”
“And how did the news get out?”
“We found out by the outreach. The outreach came by, especially to me and Eli, the other girl, because we're girls and they wanted us to be careful. But yeah, no news, no…”
“And no arrest.”
“No.”
Broad Street Ministry, the shelter that Lisa used to sleep at, has been closed since April 1st. It only operates in the winter.
“If a woman doesn't have a man,” I continued, “that's pretty fucked up, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It's almost essential.”
“Yeah. I don't see how you can be out here without somebody, a friend or someone that you trust to take care of you. Otherwise, you're in jeopardy every night, really.”
“I can see a situation where a woman is out here as a single, and then has to find a man.”
“Yes!”
“But that's also weird, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Because that's not… You don't really want this.”
“Yeah, there's a lady out here that's like that,
“So it's like a convenient boyfriend.”
“Right.”
“OK, one last question. What about your survival tactic? What have you learnt how to do that you didn't know how to do before?”
“Ah, how to have thick skin! Thick skin and, ah, knowing your surroundings, knowing what's going on around you. I used to be in this little bubble, you know, oblivious, but now I know what's going on around me, a lot, and you have to, to be out here.”
“And being out here, you can probably observe people better than you ever did.”
“Yeah.”
“Because you, literally, have nothing else to do.”
“Yeah, and you do see a lot, when you're sitting here. A lot of good, a lot of bad, but a lot.”
“So what have you learnt about people? I mean, aside from the nasty things.”
“Ah, there's a lot of good people, though. There are a lot of good people who come up and are willing to help. I have a lady over on Chesnut that comes up to me everyday and just says hi and gets me coffee in the morning. There are a lot of good people in this city that outweigh the bad. The good outweighs the bad.”
“Oh, that's good to hear.”
“Yeah. You tend to focus on the bad because it aggravates you and you don't understand it.”
“And also for survival.”
“Right!”
“If you don't focus on it, you might be dead!”
“Yeah! Exactly, exactly!”
Today, I scoured the Reading Terminal but could not find Lisa. I also didn't see her on
Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate. He's tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, Postcards from the End of America.
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