Re: (fwd) Thoughts on the Homeless (fwd)
P. Myers (mpwr@u.washington.edu)
Tue, 6 Jan 1998 19:24:58 -0800 (PST)
Don, lest this become hundreds of pages long (Liberty and I know about
*that, right?!), I'll be snipping...if I cut anything fundamental,
consider it an act of ignorance, rather than trying to strategically snip,
ok? Having said as much...
******************************snippin'********************************
>
> I don't know if I'm really angry or not. I don't think I am (love
> destroys anger). What I think is that I am outraged (as oppossed to
> angry) and that rage is interpreted as anger. I'm also confused because
> what I believe to be true is not commonly believed to be true, and it
> takes much will power to keep my focus against others' criticisms of my
> beliefs.
later in the post, you refer to my position as conflict theory. Actually,
I think of myself as a critical pedagogue (in College of Ed. and
interested in asking "who benefits?" in order to understand how
assumptions get made and perpetuated).
At any rate, *as a critical pedagogue, I'm very interested in challenging
white people to understand how their daily actions reflect assumptions
that keep poc and others marginalized. Talk about criticism!!! I am
immediately suspect, when I suggest that maaaaybe majority folks take
action, every day, in "simple" ways, that act as ripples to keep the
wheels of capitalism turning, and re in exploitation and marginalization
of people, not just in these U.S. but worldwide.
In other words, I am not very popular on many lists, m'self!
> > I think we're closer, both in practice and theory, than we realize,
>
> I don't think we are closer, actually I think we are there. That is why I
> get so outraged. Because we already have the knowledge and the resources,
> but they are not being applied or directed in an environmentally
> sustainable fashion.
>
I agree...and disagree...we *do know what to do...and there are enough who
can be made to think they are benefitting from continuing things as they
are, that nothing is changing...
btw, re another post of yours today...I am absolutely in favor of what I
think you were talking about: microlending? This is extant in the U.S.,
brought here by a man who developed the idea in, I think
Bangledesh...although other cultures--Korean and Puerto Rican come to
mind--have their own versions of microlending...this is why, as a critical
pedagogue, I want all voices brought to the table. Many ethnicities are
silenced through institutionalized bias, and we could all learn, were
they not.
> > Don,
> > and I hope I can illustrate that (of course, I may fall flat on my face,
> > and have to admit that we simply disagree...hope not...
>
> I honestly doubt that we disagree at all. And goddess knows jsut how much
> improved my appearance has become after falling on my face an infinite
> number of times.
>
I *had to leave the above! Mine is pretty dinged, too! (although I can
go you one better...I've had the impossible experience of falling flat on
said face...without time to get up from the last fall!...like...how can I
be falling, when I'm already here?!)
> > I don't want to
> > lose your perspective from this list...you make me think, and act, and
> > reflect, and change...) more:
>
> I appreciate the thought. I know it is true that my perspective is
> designed primarily to broaden people's thinking, and I've experienced the
> look of wonderment in people's eyes when I shared with them some of my
> ideas. And I also know that this approach does not necessarily cause
> people to work directly with me, because the sharing of ideas is meant to
> raise people's consciousnesses enough that they can then see new
> directions for actions in their own lives.
this is precisely what the teacher who operates as critical pedagogue
does: acts as, not authority, but resource...challenging students from a
horizontal power structure (which places him/her as learner, also), to
question their position in society, how that placement came about and
continues, and who wins and loses what thereby!
> So I'm still alone. But I'm
> also patient, even though my patience sometimes turns to rage. Now is the
> time. We are the people. I will continue to try to do my part, and I
> will look forward to the time when my brothers and sisters will be within
> the grasp of my hug and the earshot of my "I love you."
I hope this happens for you, my friend. For my part, I don't expect or
hope for this...I *do* want to see the younger people with whom I interact
begin to define themselves *for* themselves, and to consider action that
addresses the illegitimate limits that have been assumed are best for
their "protection"...challenge institutional bias, that is.
Sometimes this, I think, will happen collectively, sometimes
individually...it does this way in my life, certainly.
***************************little snip**********************
> > > This is the essence of my approach to homelessness. That is, that there
> > > is really nothing we can do by hoping that others will solve our problems
> > > for us, and that we must come together to solve our own problems.
> > >
> > and I agree! We seem to have a little different way of thinking about how
> > to accomplish that...
>
> How do you envision the accomplishment of our coming together to solve our
> problems?
as I said above, Don, I don't necessarily think about coming together,
although I am glad when we do, as on hpn...I try to create conditions
where people can more freely examine their / our situatedness, and
challenge one another to begin the pilgrimage that hopefully will result
in not only greater self-awareness, but reflexivity: changed behavior for
the greater good.
A life's work, and a life's commitment. Without concern for other's
expectations or company, at least in my mind.
> If our difference is in "thinking" about accomplishment, as opposed to the
> actual means of accomplishment, then maybe some clarity on "thinking"
> would be appropriate. This is going to be rough because it is coming more
> from my heart than my head. So please bear with me.
>
always. All ways. You have good things to say.
> In my opinion there are two approaches (actually there are infinite
> approaches but I'm going to simplify them into two) to thinking about
> poverty. One approach is that poverty is the result of people not having
> the material resources necessary to ensure some minimum standard of life
> quality. This approach causes one to look for solutions that provide some
> minimum level of material resources, from the collective pool available to
> all, for those in need. Advocacy and activism primarily follow this
> approach to thinking about the problem.
>
> Another approach is that poverty is simply the result of people not
> organizing in an effective and efficient manner to provide for their own
> needs. This approach leads one to look for solutions that mobilize
> currently available resources, from those in need, for the purpose of
> ensuring the provision of at least some minimum necessary material for
> sustaining the lives of all involved.
>
and I know you prefer the latter. To me, this leaves the *structure* that
permits the politics of division to continue, unchallenged and
unaddressed...??
"all involved" I'm reading as marginalized. Of course, if we really
*could organinze all marginalized, globally, then we might just change the
order of things...not to exclude the excluders (contrary to what I've said
before), but to create a more inclusive social system...
ok, more snipping:
> > > On the contrary, anything that has to do with people is about people, and
> > > anything that has to do with marginalized people is about acceptance of
> > > people's differences.
sorry, jumping in in the middle again. I am naming a situation, but not
to accept...to understand what is happening, usually, below a socially
conscious level.
(snip:)
> > > What I have been trying to get HPN to realize is that poverty
> > > and homelessness is not about housing, money, economics, etc. All of
> > > these things will not make a spiritiually bankrupt person moral; while a
> > > transcendant consciousness will make even the poorest of people wealthy
> > > beyond all material.
> > >
> Also let me know what are the things that I say that are
> useful to others. One of my problems is that I am a brainstormer, and as
> such not all of my ideas are useful, and furthermore it's difficult for me
> to know which of my ideas are helpful.
>
actually, my friend doesn't need jumpstarting (*8D)...just a 30 hour day
and an 8 day week...he's a student too...
I think I lose sight of you when you talk about spirituality. I don't
know how to go there, and keep sight of what I'm thinking...never have...I
just don't consider myself a spiritual person, I guess...
> > I don't build the conceptual walls that I think I'm reading above...
>
> I'm not sure of what conceptual walls to which you're here referring. The
> only one that I am afraid of at this point is the following, "I would
> suggest, though, that anything that has to do with people, especially
> marginalized people, *is about housing, money, economics, etc." I see
> this as a wall because it implicitly makes us look for material solutions
> to what I have to truthfully call a social problem.
Yeah! That's the one for me, too! but I don't build a wall there...I
think of housing, economics, social justice, education, capitalism, etc,
etc. *as social problems...socially defined, and requiring social action
to change...civil disobedience, critical examination, deconstruction and
reconstruction, historical correction (revision, some might say...)...lots
of paths to the same destination...
What I don't assume is that thinking in terms of institutional bias leads
automatically to material-only fixes...like, just give money, or houses,
or other piecemeal goodies that can then, some year or two later, be said
to be an "entitlement" and going to the undeserving and dependent xxx's,
and then withdrawn...*or that this thinking leads automatically to
thinking of marginalized as inherently less-than...inferior...
> By housing, people
> usually mean low cost single family dwellings or apartments. By money,
> people usually refer to good paying jobs. By economics, people usually
> refer to the balancing or management of income and outflow. This material
> approach to the problem is itself problematic because all the years of
> houses, jobs and economics hasn't prevented poverty. What makes us think
> that these materials will solve the problem now? Why is it that I meet
> homeless people at Rainbow Gatherings who are full of love and community
> despite not having housing, jobs, and economics? This is why I think
> poverty is a social issue, and not a material one. If we get the social
> spirit corrected then the material shortcomings will be overcome. There
> is an underground community in the country (kind of like the underground
> railroad during the Civil War) in which anybody who belongs can go to a
> community and find food and shelter with their family there. This is the
> safety net that we need to build. We need a community infrastructure such
> that any person who is in need can belong and stay for as long as needed.
> With such an infrastructure in place, then we will be protected against
> the time when the world of single family homes, and paid employment
> collapses.
if so, we are also going to have to challenge the idea of the nuclear
family as the ideal... and that will be a more difficult challenge than
any we've discussed thus far.
It *has happened, though...in Seattle, the Love Family has lasted for
decades as a cooperative commune...the city was scared spitless of them at
first, but eventually, they were assimilated into their community. I
don't know what other such alternative living spaces exist.
> > I look
> > to how people got those "don't"s into their lives: don't reach out; don't
> > let him in, even if he *is our son; *let him in, even though he's not a
> > relative; s/he is ok---s/he is not...all that labelling *does affect how
> > folks make decisions, and usually at a level that isn't real accessible to
> > the conscious...just assumptions (ha! "just") that get acted on...to
> > exclude some and include others...including whether or not we reach out
> > with a feeling of membership in the human race...or don't because we've
> > been taught that others don't want us...that was *my personal
> > internalization...the tapes *I have to silence before I can ask for
> > help... and it *was external, until I, at some age, in some way,
> > internalized and accepted it. Understand?
>
> This is why I refer to acceptance of people's differences or to tolerance
> of diversity. The only thing that I want to internalize and accept is
> love. And for me that means to use my strength to provide for our
> material well-being, and my compassion to provide for our spiritual
> well-being.
Right. And *I* work to help people understand the external impediments
that have been set in motion in their lives, and continue to exist at
usually subliminal levels, so that those other-definitions can be exhumed
and examined and cast off. Because we often internalize our perceptions
of the possible long before we can think abstractly about whether or not
these worldviews are in our best interests...or even work at all for us.
> As a result, I accept you and what you are doing, even though
> they differ from me and what I am doing. Together, we can ensure that you
> can do what you need to do to become you, and that I can do what I need to
> do to become me.
agree. Enthusiastically agreed!
> At some point though, everybody has to decide whather to
> follow the dictates of our upbringings and shape themselves with society's
> molds, or to transcend their histories by charting and folowing their own
> courses. As far as I'm concerned the sheep are not enlightened, for
> whatever reason, and furthermore often choose to remain unenlightened
> (like the ostrich with its head in the sand, if it can't see the danger
> the danger mustn't exist). As far as an enlightened person is concerned
> then their only option is to internalize and accept love. Which is to say
> that they must find ways to build others' physical and spiritual health.
>
First, one must know what one *assumes*...this is tough work, and takes
time, and is never really finished..."our own courses" are often easier
said than found...that's what I work at...finding my own course, and
helping others interrogate theirs, as I interrogate mine.
> > > > And about definitions
> > >
> > > Yes, it is about definitions. Who is responsible for the poor person's
> > > misery? The poor person. Why? Because it does no good to look outside
> > > of oneself for the answers to one's problems.
> >
> > I hate to jump into the middle, but I gotta! Part of looking out at
> > what and who benefits from marginalizing and defining and dividing us *is
> > cruicial to changing one's belief in one's helplessness...
>
> Yes, conflict theory goes a long way toward identifying the real culprits
> of our misery, but if we were to then punish those evildoers then we would
> be repeating the same mistakes that civilization has committed in the
> past. This knowledge does not help change my belief in my helplessness
> however. Rather it points to which players in the field that I don't want
> to cooperate with.
>
for me...if I make an active choice *not* to participate (which includes
being called names like "race traitor" etc.), then that choice not to
participate with certain players *is* an action that directly changes
helpless behavior to proactive, self-directed behavior.
See where we think about this a little differently? Yet, we're still in
the same ballpark.
> > at least for
> > some...not a stopping point, where one gives up as helpless victim, but a
> > *beginning, where one may think about *personally chosen options,
> > previously ignored, or thought inappropriate, because of the bill of goods
> > bought from where ever: parents, media, etc. and internalized.
>
> This is the problem with conflict theory because it does not provide those
> "personally chosen options", that would eliminate one's belief in their
> helplessness. In my opinion the only way to eradicate the belief in
> helplessness is to focus on the spirit. I am helpless to prevent my
> material death, but through the spirit I can live eternally. Once I
> realize that I am not helpless to give love, then I can realize that no
> amount of material threat or deprivation can prevent me from loving. This
> is a very empowering understanding. Not only am I not helpless, but I am
> the source of all power. As the poor and weak understand and accept this
> truth of the source of power, then collective consciousness changes so
> that people begin to find new ways to provide for the physical and
> spiritual well-being of all.
>
whew! I'm nowhere near that, yet. but, again, for me, not *conflict
theory* but the interrogative process of critical examination, *in order
to find my own way*.
> > I'm talking about stages of understanding that will result in just what
> > you are wanting, Don: collective action, spontaneously taken, as a
> > function of understanding that the sign "Don't Walk Here" is a wicked
> > sham, and one we don't have to believe or respect.
>
> We are talking about the same thing. And this is the same thing that all
> enlightened humans and cultures have talked about. I just read Ralph
> Waldo Emerson who said the same thing, and this summer I read the Hindu
> Upanishads which also said the same thing. Even Christ and the Buddha
> said the same thing. That is, everybody agrees that for humans to become
> they must look into their hearts of love, discern loving from hateful
> actions, reject all hateful actions, enact only loving actions, and suffer
> the penalty that society will levy for becoming human instead of a tool
> for its ends. The last seems to be the hardest part. How can suffering
> or dying for my beliefs of love, help to improve my life? Once we realize
> the eternality of love then we can willingly sacrifice our material
> welfare so that those who follow us may experience a more loving
> environment.
sorry, I can't snip...you do it when you answer, if you want to answer...
> > > So what are the poor doing
> > > wrong that keeps them poor? They are not using the resources they have at
> > > their disposal to help themselves and other like-situated people. Once we
> > > realize that all people are members of the human family, and that it is
> > > our individual responsibility to help every one of our family members in
> > > need, then both the poor and those better off will be able to solve the
> > > problem of poverty. Blah, blah, blah. Shut your fucking mouth Duck!
> >
> > What they are also doing wrong is believing that they can join together...
>
> We must join together, but not for the purpose of excluding others.
>
if I choose not to participate in capitalism...to the best of my
ability...then I *do* exclude certain others...and if enough me's make
this decision, those Others are going to feel the pinch, and find
themselves, well, not exactly delighted with my behavior. WE may join
together *not for the *purpose of exclusion, but exclusion will obtain, de
facto.
> > that there is a process necessary to building understanding that we are
> > all a human race, and when one is left behind, that leaving is to
> > everyone's detriment...
>
but even as I say this and believe it, I think those who believe in free
market (*there's an oxymoron!) competition are going to mount one hell of
an argument!
> Absoultely. This is why I reject private property. All property is the
> possession of humanity, including my body. By spending my body on
> humanity, humanity returns my body with food, shelter, etc. This is
> putting the cart and the horse in the right order.
>
I don't think I have quite the trust you do, with this, Don.
> > For me, this gets stuck to talking about capitalism, competition and etc.
> > which "ideals" we've been brainfed for so damned long.
>
> Unfortunately, I think that I succeeded in alienating our capitalist
> listmember. Yes, I will always criticize capitalism just as I will always
> criticize centralized governance. But I will not only criticize, I will
> also look for ways to substitute those systems with alternate systems that
> do not have the same faults.
(snip)
> capitalism is the cause and source of poverty itself.
You said it!
(snipped pat)
> > > The politics of division suggest that we are not responsible for anybody
> > > but ourselves. The politics of unity suggest that we are responsible for
> > > everybody including ourselves. It is true that the groups putting
> > > together enough for a house are not seeing the guy behind the dumpster as
> > > one of their concerns, but neither is the guy behind the dumpster helping
> > > others like himself to get a better place to live.
> > >
> > absolutely agreed. We live in a country...nation...damned near world that
> > *operates on the politics of division...all our institutions do...we
> > compete for entertainment; survival; jobs; homes; and our politicos are
> > *real interested in hiding from us the politics of inclusion...that's
> > *exactly* what hpn is trying to develop...and you have been a huge part of
> > that...why don't you see that, Donald??
>
> Yes, the politics of inclusion. Didn't the Statue of Liberty welcome all
> the poor and needy of the world to our shores? Yes, I agree that a
> politics of inclusion is an appropriate goal for HPN, and I have been
> using everything in my verbal arsenal to direct our focus to empowerment
> and direct action. I think that Tom has done the most in keeping this
> focus and it is hard for me to see anything that I am doing yet as HUGE.
> In part, because I am in solitary confinement (so to speak) and can't see
> the positive actions in your own communities. Also, I am having very
> little luck motivating the people in my own community.
I think you have a sense of where your frustration is coming from, Donald.
We ain't there yet, but there is much going on, in many communities and
institutions that might raise your spirits. Highe thee to Seattle!!
>
> > There are ways to receive gov't funds without selling out
> > ideals
>
> I also have to disagree with this. Life is free. The use of money is a
> selling out of life, period. There is no way to steal from life and not
> sell out life. There are ways to adjust your conscience so that the
> selling out does not make one feel guilt, but the selling out is still
> happening. Money reinforces at all stages the belief in material as
> greater than the belief in ideals. Why does the food service industry
> provide food to consumers? To advance the ideal of well-fed humans? Hell
> no. To make a profit? That's right, and if it threatens our profit then
> all the humans can just starve to death for all money cares.
sorry, can you simplify a little? I'm lost in the above...???
> > ...one may maintain integrity while flipping the gov't on it's own
> > system of having to prove not only accountability, but fairness.
>
> Let's replace the government with a globe of humans that are individually
> accountable and fair in their everyday actions.
>
to do that we must either become so completely and seamlessly organized
that we create a *very* powerful counter reality, or we use the system to
fight the system...and I think probably both, since, marginalized or not,
we exist and are exploited (whether we will or not) within the system.
> > I'd love to talk advocacy with you more, Don...you have ideas I want to
> > bounce mine off...
>
> Let's talk advocacy.
>
raincheck...next thread!
> > > Is anybody interested in helping out? Or can
> > > somebody tell me of a group that is doing the work that I have in mind?
> > >
> > yes, dammit, hpn!
>
> I'm still here.
>
but when I wrote, I was reading your frustration as prelude to not being
here. I'm glad you're still here, Don.
> > What can I do right now, to make your life easier? Tell. Please.
> >
> > patM
>
> Thanks Pat, I love you. I'm not necessarily looking for an easier life,
> just a more meaningful one. And you do help me, right now, by making me
> question and explain my understanding of meaning. But what you could do
> to help is to continue the dialogue, and cooperate on the formation of an
> empowerment collective.
>
echo, Don. Echo.
> Peace and Love Always (All Ways),
> Donald W. Bokor, (AKA "Happy Man/Love You")
>
PatM
>
>