I saw this muslin women begging in the busy streets of the Champs Elysees.
Beggars make me uneasy: sometimes I feel like emptying the whole content of my pockets on their begging hats, cups and hands, and sometimes a silent type of greed takes hold of me and I cannot immagine myself parting with a single coin. What makes my feelings towards beggars inconstant is the lack of information. I wish I knew why they ended up begging in the streets. Is it desperation, or is it because begging is easier than working?
I come from a family of poor people who prospered through education and hard work in a country where quality public education and heath care are rarities, and although they were poor, begging was never an option. Working hard was, studying hard was. That is why I wonder: could this woman, begging in the streets fully clothed, with seemingly decent shoes, be working? Could she find other means to feed herself and possibly her family?
I have seen so many barefoot children wearing rags walking in groups by the beach, trying to survive one day at a time, that I feel a woman like this, kneeling in the streets for hours, but fully clothed agains the mild cold of Paris, should feel ashamed to beg, and not I ashamed to give. I have seen people who have less sharing their hard earned food with others.
On the other hand, there I stood, in this temple of Consumerism that is the Champs Elysees, with money to spend on presents and souvenirs, while this women spend hours in her knees for the occasional change. Does she have a house? Does she have food in that house? Maybe...
Would you give?
I find panhandlers to be an extremely touchy, difficult subject to deal with in conversation, in debate, and in life in general. What DO you do? I was walking down the drag one day when I stumbled across a homeless man asking if the bag I was holding had any leftovers in it, and told him, "Unfortunately, no, sir. I don't have any food in here." But then I remembered that I had something in my possession that I COULD give him that could help him feed himself.
ReplyDelete"Wait a second, I do have something for you though," I said.
I reached into my wallet and pulled out a 10 dollar gift card to Scholtzsky's Deli, which was only about a block away from where we were interacting. I held it out to him and told him what it was, and pointed out that the restaurant was really close by.
He stared at me. His stare slowly turned into a glare. And he angry ripped the card from my hand and indignantly threw it down next to him, and didn't respond to me. I stood there a little bit confused before I walked away.
These sorts of things are the reasons why panhandlers usually don't get anything from me directly. I feel as though when I try to help, they resent it. They only want cash. And I've seen those same guys sitting around drinking 24 packs of beer with their other homeless companions. The money for that 24 pack could have been saved or put away somewhere to be used for something else. But instead they just blew their money on beer, cigarettes, and the like.
I find it hard to feel good about giving a panhandler straight up cash. I know it's a generalization to assume they won't put it to good use, but personally, I see more value in donating to the shelters and community centers that feed these people and help them get back on their feet in a safe environment.
But those are just my two cents.
I also have a hard time deciding what to do when dealing with panhandlers. The problem truly is that you have no way of knowing their story or what they are going to do with the money. There are those that really desperately need it and those that are running a complete scam. Just last night, a couple of girls and I finished dinner and had lots of leftovers so we took them back with us and happened to pass a young man asking for change. We gave him the leftovers instead, and he was extremely appreciative. It is these cases that make me believe a little more in humanity. We also saw a very domesticated scene of homelessness as we walked back to Wadham. I man and woman were sitting in front of a closed bank with a few towels spread out, two dogs that each had bowls of water, and the man was sitting comfortably reading a book. It was the most comfortable scene of homelessness that I have ever scene and yet it makes one wonder, why are they homeless then? This subject is always a difficult one.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this a difficult and touchy subject but one that resonates with everyone who's walked down the Drag. There are times, like Diana, when I want to empty my pockets. However, growing up in Mexico (and at least this is true there) giving money to beggars was completely useless. For the most part (and I realize this is a generalization and there are, of course, exceptions) parents send their children out to beg for money that they will more often than not use to buy drugs/alcohol/you get my idea. So giving money to these kids is counterproductive. However, if they return with no money they will usually be beaten. So what do you do? In my opinion it's usually better to give food - even though it is sometimes resented, like Meredith said.
ReplyDeleteIn the U.S. this is very different. I try to avoid giving money to those who look like they should be able to get a job. I realize that everyone has a story and some have a very good reason but I have heard the story of rich kid-running-away from home too many times and have become skeptical. Also, I don't think it really helps the issue and agree with Meredith that giving money to shelters should be more beneficial.
I really appreciate the vulnerability of this post, I share many of your sentiments about the difficulty of discerning whether or even WHAT to give in situations like this. There's so much ambiguity in trying to understand the complex motivations and factors that drive people to beg. But I think it's important, especially in the context of this class, that we understand that even amidst the otherness of begging a person for money or food, these are still people. Resentful or not, I think it is worth reminding ourselves that even though the actions of beggars are quite removed from what we know and take comfort in, their goals are still fundamentally the same as ours. I think in attempting to understand the motivations for begging, we can learn a lot about the kind of mindsets that inform the writers we've read during this course. Their job is to convey a fundamentally alien experience, oftentimes of immigration or race, to a group that really doesn't have any other way of engaging with the material. It reminds me of a great line from Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation," "I always think that he was once somebody's baby boy...and he had a mother and a father who loved him. And now, there he is, half-dead on a park bench and where is his mother or his father or his uncles now?"
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