Scrolling through Facebook earlier this afternoon, I saw a picture that both horrified and enraged me. Two boys with whom I went to school were photographed dressed up as homeless men and holding signs that they would be "bummed" if the girls they were asking did not go to prom with them. While the debate surrounding appropriate costumes is usually limited to Halloween, it does not lose significance during other times of the year. The small town (pop. 1,700) these boys and I grew up in, is predominately white and middle-class. In addition, although it is located 45 minutes from a major city, the people in it live a fairly suburban lifestyle. I can think of one instance from my entire upbringing when I heard of a homeless person living in the upstairs of a church in that town. To see boys who have never gone hungry, always had a roof over their heads, and are privileged enough to have access to excellent educational and athletic programs, pretending they are homeless- broke my heart to the level of unawareness in my own hometown. It was thirty degrees outside today. Cold enough to freeze to death without proper clothing and shelter for the night. It is not okay to sit outside for less than an hour, pretending you are homeless, and then go warm up in your parents' houses when thousands of Americans don't have a warm place to stay tonight. Last year I lived in a 'big city', and although I barely glimpsed the lives of the homeless, I saw more than these boys could ever witness in that town. Indeed, at one point I was the spare bedroom of a friend away from living out of my company-issued truck. Standing on that precipice, I realized how easy it would be to fall off of the already rocky ground I was standing upon. I was the victim of a unique circumstance and down on my luck. I was conscientious of treading too heavily on the backs of my coworkers who had already helped me out and I was holding myself together with the sheer will to survive. If I would have seen two middle class boys pretending to be homeless and tossing around the word 'bum' while I was putting my last two dollars of cash into gas for my truck and praying it would get me to work- I probably would have started crying and not stopped until all of the sodium from my exclusively ramen-noodle diet had run down my face. Homeless people are not bums. Some are employed but live in areas that lack affordable housing. Some suffer from mental illnesses and some are victims of domestic violence. Some simply did not have access to coping mechanisms (think: walking 1,100 miles through the woods) when they became overwhelmed at the sometimes impossibly difficult thing we call life. So as the rest of you start thinking about asking your date to prom: please don't dress up as if you are homeless. Pull out the sidewalk chalk, borrow a friends steer, and open your eyes to how incredibly privileged you are to be blowing a couple hundred dollars on one night. Whatever you choose to do, remember that homeless people are just that: people.
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Elizabeth SchragAdventurer. Biblical and Theological Studies major. Borderline Vegan. Rebel with a cause. Archives
March 2017
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