Just as you would hope humanity has evolved in ways beyond the hate of the past,
you might also ask just how it has evolved in the response to that hate.
There have been a lot of different people yelling horrible things outside on the street where I live for the past year.
To be clear, they are not protesters - not in any sense one might recognize - but individuals just screaming obscene and obnoxious things like "get out", "go home, stay home", "I hope you die", "rapist", "rape-o", "pedophile", weirdly and very specifically "those two cops are rapists", "liar", "whore", "suck my dick bitch", the n-word, "fuck off f*ggot", "burn it down" - and the like - over and over without context or so much as a longer sentence. On and off randomly at all hours of the day and night.
There are variations to the nonsense. The other night someone was outside at 5am saying shit like "I love you" for about an hour, which was still annoying as fuck, and I closed my window on a light I had, which cut the cord on it. Feels like a fucked up metaphor, but that's just exploiting the fact that I'm a kind of poet.
There have been other issues as well - like someone setting a sleeping bag which appeared covered in feces on fire - other noise and pollution that wasn't around before the 2020 shutdown - but I won't get into that right now.
The point of this meditation is that there is a man who has captured my attention in a particular sort of way.
He doesn't have legs and has been crawling on the ground on his hands.
I've seen him be in the same spot for days on end.
Likely shitting in corners. Unable to get a shower.
While people snot, spit, and pee on the street where he gets around.
Don't even get me started on hearing people coughing and sneezing outside.
I wonder if he was in the military from his attitude of independence and the way he's surviving outside - there seems to be something extremely tough about what he's doing.
But it feels so wrong - even more so than the usual person I've witnessed surviving outside - sometimes without shoes - or even pants - who also deserves any help they're willing to accept.
Just hope for their sakes it's the right kind of help.
Not to forget we're still in the middle of a pandemic.
Not that it made life stop - not around here at least.
Shelter and city staff who work nearby seem to just pass him.
He goes unacknowledged.
This would all bring about a feeling of pure and total empathy from me
except that he's now taken to shouting horrendous things too
sometimes directly under my window.
"Suck my dick bitch", "fuck off f*ggot", "go to hell" - etc. etc. etc.
Today I woke up to his gruff voice saying "get out".
I've heard some people seem to tell him to shut up,
but I'm honestly surprised he's even still around at all.
Which brings me to this question:
what is the best way for the average person to respond to hate?
When you don't want to become part of that hate yourself?
When you want to fix a problem, not make it worse?
When you yourself feel powerless and there's no one else to call for help?
My first thought is to respond with art.
Make a sign that says:
"IN THIS HOUSE BEING GAY IS COOL"
"BLACK LIVES MATTER (never meant yours didn't)"
"FUCK FASCISM"
"YOUR BODY, YOUR CHOICE"
"YOU CAN LOVE PEOPLE WHO MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES THAN YOU"
"LOVE IS BETTER THAN HATE"
"YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN"
"NO PERSON IS ILLEGAL"
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS HOME SO JUST LET PEOPLE LIVE"
"WHERE IS HOME WHEN YOU HAVE NO HOME?"
"COEXIST, BITCHES"
"A SEAT AT THE TABLE FOR EVERYONE OR THE TABLE GETS FLIPPED OVER"
"RAISE THE STANDARD OF LIVING: GOOD HOUSING, GOOD FOOD, QUALITY HEALTHCARE, UPDATED EDUCATION AT ANY AGE - FOR ALL"
"BE A WORLD CITIZEN"
"YOU'RE ONLY ALLOWED TO TAKE WORDS BACK THAT ARE USED AGAINST YOU"
"EVERYBODY IS A WHORE"
Alternatively: "WHORE? I'M NOT THAT COOL, SORRY"
"BEING A RAPIST OR A PEDOPHILE ISN'T GOOD, BUT NO ONE HERE IS, AND EVEN THEN I'M NOT SURE THIS TACTIC WOULD HELP ANYTHING"
"ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS AND FOLLOW THE MONEY"
But clearly that seems a little weak.
Pretty, maybe, if the sign is eye-catching, but don't know how it would make them stop screaming.
I've taken to wearing active noise cancelling headphones 24 hours a day, by the way. But my ears are getting fucked up from them, and sometimes I need to take a break or even just charge them - which means being exposed to the bullshit. If I don't have a steady background noise and I'm in a certain mental state, some noises send a jolt through my body like I've been hit by sound. It's more than annoying - it feels like abuse.
But what am I supposed to do? Petition to have the ripping engines and obnoxious bass outlawed?
Have screaming outside made illegal?
Spend my life accidentally getting things banned that have no business being banned?
You know someone would use this against people for an excuse to up a quota or stop legitimate protests.
Funnel money into a program that still doesn't directly help people?
And give me a break - for better and for worse - no one is enforcing shit as it is, anyway.
People are cherry picked to make into bad examples.
The idea of nutrition and pain management comes into play.
Maybe people are hungry or hurting.
But there's zero reason you should be hungry if you're anywhere near this area.
Must be half a dozen services in a 10 block radius.
I was told when I first moved here by someone unhoused that "you'd have to be an idiot to go hungry in Portland".
I'm curious just what kind of food people are able to get on a regular basis.
It's hard enough when it seems you have to fight for the idea that they deserve the help in the first place.
Even more complicated when you see people throw the food on the ground or leave garbage in their wake.
But pain is another thing.
They did just decriminalize drugs, so I imagine people are getting better help in this regard.
I want to think so.
Can't help but wonder how that cookie is supposed to crumble.
You either pay a $100 fine or you have a "health screening" - whatever that means.
But if you can't afford a tube of RSO - which is my own issue right now and which is completely legalized - or afford it regularly enough to keep yourself balanced - you end up just suffering more. Not to mention employers still being able to fire you over it - but again - that's another issue.
My problem was never cannabis. My problem was being too poor to afford cannabis, too stigmatized to live above the bullshit, and every now and then ending up with what I think was a bad product.
If you don't have $100, do you end up in some kind of program while the guy who can afford it goes free?
Wasn't that kinda how it always was? If you're poor, you're fucked?
And are they just keeping track of people easier this way?
Meanwhile, people act out when they're in pain.
It's harder to keep a clear mind about the world around you.
Everything is dimmed by the weight and pressure of what ails you.
To the point of distraction. To the point of knee-jerk reactions that you didn't mean and wouldn't have ever said or done if you were in a brighter, freer, more relaxed mental and physical state.
I've had my own stormy days and I'm sure I still haven't known the absolute worse a person could feel.
A popped cartilage in my lung. A fucked up tooth. A mild concussion. Broken ankle. Horrible menstrual cramps. Pain in my neck, shoulders, back. A constant kind of underlying sadness that just makes me tired all the time.
But my grandmother used to tell me that every pain you ever had comes back when you're older - all at once.
Another good reason why people should stick to weed and save opioids in any form for when they're in a different kind of pain (just my opinion).
I can't tell you how much it's felt like suffering for no reason to be without my cannabis medication.
I've taken breaks for up to 6 months before. Going back to it always makes me question why I let myself live without it. I just can't afford it. So imagine someone who has been on something much "harder" and I can see why one might be freaking out in the street.
Even as I write this a girl who has been a regular - I can recognize her voice at this point - screams "fuck you cuuuuuunt fuck you" from a distance.
So pleasant, so lovely - no not really.
But how can I react to her without losing my own sense of self?
Without becoming the monster she seems like to me?
I think the city should have funded Portland Street Response.
They said it would take 6 months to roll out once they finally do.
I don't understand - there are plenty of people in all positions of authority who work and live in this area.
Why does it feel like I'm alone in this world?
Why wouldn't other people in the area have petitioned for the unarmed, mental wellness based, street response program, too?
At least then there'd be someone who you could call.
Someone trained in psychology (not that that always works out perfectly, but better than not) to come out and calm people down, provide for their needs, and there'd be no chance of them ending up dead in the process.
It has been the equivalent time of a regular job to watch the local/national/world news and the city council meetings which can be hours long. Just to watch them, much less take on a critical approach and do research on everything you're hearing... I've taken a break (aka got a bit burned out and have been feeling uselessly ineffective) but I was trying to do that every day. I imagine someone working 40 hours a week, especially with kids as well, just wouldn't have the time or energy to really study these things. That itself is a barrier to any positive citizen based change.
What other option is there?
Make art
Empathize
Provide good nutrition
Provide pain managment
Provide housing for fuck's sake
Have trained, unarmed, secular caregivers come out to assist on a person-by-person basis
Try to make changes through legislation
Maybe run for government if you can
Don't expect any one idea to ever perfectly fix anything
I've had to worry about ending up on the street myself long before the pandemic started, but I've been isolated in quarantine for over a year now and the only view I really have is of the street outside my window. It's an unending and unyielding visual and auditory sort of warning that "this is what might happen to you and no one will care". I don't know what I'm supposed to do - what kind of work I'm supposed to find to ensure I'll have an income when assistance programs end. I've applied for a few remote jobs, but they moved on to other candidates. My tech is defunct and isn't good enough for a lot of things. I'm also distracted by all the bullshit noise I've been describing plus some - a siren just went by, buzzing my apartment. Loud even with the noise cancelling headphones. A motorcycle revs its engine and I'm worried it'll leave a smog of pollution. It didn't - thankfully - this time. The louder the vehicle, the more likely I think that happens. I feel tired all the time. I live day to day. I don't know what to do.
So I've fantasized that if I ever did end up unhoused, where the best possible place for me to go would be. An idealized kind of utopia for a worse case scenario.
Maybe if my life dramatically changed, I could open a place like this someday: a 24 hour art shelter.
Somewhere genuinely safe, clean, welcoming, free. Secular. A seat at the table of life for everyone with a foundation in universal human rights. Free resources to create. Spaces to be alone. Showers, toilets, a bed - private enough and socially distanced. Food - healthy with vegetarian options. Gardens would be amazing. Maybe they help you sell your artwork, too. Where you could connect with people without being crammed together, forced on each other, or put in harm's way. I see where it could go wrong - someone in a certain kind of distress running around and just making a mess - but if people were respectful and there were trained mental health providers with secular and holistic, non-judgmental and solution based rather than critical approaches on site - people who really do care and want to help - aren't just doing it for a paycheck or have gotten burnt out - I don't know - that's where I could maybe call home if I lost my own.
The most difficult puzzle I can't seem to solve myself is what to do about people who deserve help as much as anyone else, but just aren't mentally all there enough. People who are going to have behavioral issues beyond just human variation or existing outside the norm - they aren't justifiably angry or upset for some reason that could be understood and addressed - and they're going to do destructive things seemingly without purpose or even awareness. Why does that happen? What can be done to help them? What can be done to help make everybody safe? How often do people like that end up unhoused? How often do they end up just - gone? Does it depend on who your family is - if you have any family - of if they've got money - or some other social contribution? Because I can tell you from experience, there are plenty of people "acting out" but they're doing it with fancy cars and stereo systems and expensive motorcycles or some other material thing and they go by every day sometimes literally vibrating things inside my apartment - ripping out my eardrums - having me choke on exhaust - keeping me awake at odd hours - but I'm sure if they have money for gas, then they probably have money to eat and probably have a home. So what's the difference between them and someone screaming outside with nothing but a blanket, if that - or without any shoes?
I'm not sure what else to say at the moment.
This has taken a lot out of me and it's not very long, which doesn't make me feel good.
I'm tired and don't feel like I should be.
Someone - a different guy - with a harsh tone is saying something outside, breaking the temporary quiet.
I want to help people, but I admit I'm mostly being annoyed by them instead.
I hate that.
I don't know what to do.
Just keep being alive for as long as I can, I guess.
Might add more to this later - not that anyone is reading.
It does feel better just to have gotten the ideas out.
I've been thinking about this stuff for a very long time now.
Man, I wish that guy would just stop.
I think I hear music - not too much bass.
That's always nice at least.
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