It is a beautiful day outside. As I write this, the sun crests with late afternoon light and the air hums with the buzz of spring. I want to be out walking. I want to feel the sunshine on my face and in my hair. I want to enjoy every bit of nature's warmth after spending the last several weekends bundled up because of the snow. But today I am not out walking. Instead, I am sitting inside with my computer. I am looking up self-defense courses and trauma counselors. I am wondering why I didn't just bite the bullet and buy the Frontiersman Bearspray intended for grizzlies instead of settling for the gel mace. I am thinking of how blasted smart Donald Trump is for running a campaign based on fear. I am sitting inside, pondering these thoughts, because yesterday I went for a walk. Yesterday I marched out of the parking lot of the church where I am staying, arms swinging and ponytail bouncing, with a smile on my face that spring had finally arrived. Yesterday I boogied down the sidewalk like I have several afternoons a week for the past month and let myself relax into the rhythm of my feet hitting the sidewalk. Yesterday I put up with the catcalls and the honks and, like always, tried not to think of the volunteer I worked with several weeks ago that told me to take them as a compliment. But yesterday I also passed a group of men, sitting outside of a mechanic shop, that had not ever been there before. As I walked by, a chorus of voices rose up, "hey, baby," "gimme some," "here jewel," and so I quickened my pace and hoped they would be gone by the time I turned around and headed back. At that point, I contemplated crossing to the other side of the street. However, I was no where near a crosswalk and it was too busy to jaywalk. As the time neared for me to head back, I turned around, determined to press onward home with my shoulders squared and my eyes facing forward. As I neared the corner where the group had stood, I simultaneously noticed that the crosswalk light was about to turn and, out of the corner of my eye, that someone, who turned out to be an adolescent boy, was running towards me. I began to sprint towards the crosswalk and onto the next block. This wasn't a sprint like the intervals I forced myself to do on the soccer practice field at school. It wasn't the short burst of speed I find when my brother chases me. And it certainly was not anything like the lighthearted races one of the other long-termers and I challenge each other to when we go out on walks or runs. This wasn't the sprint of the predator: it was the sprint of the prey. All my humanity fell away and for an interminable moment, I was merely a being. After several blocks the bile rising to my throat brought me back to reality and, after managing a brave glimpse behind me, I began to slow. As I returned to a walk, fighting to catch my breath, a kind older woman pulled up beside me. I lied to her, telling her I was fine when she asked if I was okay. She then informed me that people who run like I was running are never okay. I managed to squeak out the truth, I don't like people yelling at me, before resuming my walk. Several blocks later, someone honked. Stop. Just stop. Uttered a voice barely louder than a whisper. I realized it was my own. Today I stayed inside. And when I got out of the car at the jobsite or the store, I shuddered every time a car drove by. I found myself cringing at every black, male face I passed. And I forced deep breaths down my throat every time I heard a honk. It is not fair and it is not right that I, a person who receives automatic privilege simply because of the color of my skin, should have an automatic and negative view of an entire race's gender. But it is also not fair or right that I am treated as an object every time I walk down the street. It is not fair that I am reduced to a piece of ass, a sex symbol, a white girl asking for it in my paint stained jeans and grungy ball cap. I will leave Detroit, at least for a while, sometime in the near future. I will find quiet country roads and shaded foot paths to walk alongside and I will once again think of using mace on bears and not people. But I don't want the next Mennonite farm girl that likes to walk/run who comes along, to fear for her life. I don't want this generation of 13 year old boys to grow up thinking it is okay to chase a woman down the street. I can buy my pepper spray and glance guiltily at hand guns. And those men can continue to stand near street corners, blasting degrading music and cat-calling women. But it is not until we, collectively, put down our guns and our radios, that we will find ways to cross cultural chasms. In a white feminist, American Sniper world, it is difficult to imagine black men and white women feeling equally safe on the same streets. But it is even more difficult to imagine the children I know growing up solely in a world of fear and hatred. Yesterday I was presented with a challenge but today I was presented with a choice. I can choose to build up the basis of fear I have developed over the past five weeks from men like those on that street corner. Or I can choose to build friendships (and right now, basements) for the women like the one in the car. Mothers, grandmothers, daughters, people. People who have trusted me in their homes and hugged me in their churches. People who want safe communities. People who want back Detroit.
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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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