I think homelessness is a dehumanizing experience that strips someone of their identity. It’s difficult for me to pretend that I don’t see the people with their belongings piled around them, simply because I’m not sure if they really are homeless or not. Yes, I judge people but I try my best not to. Seeing people in that position hurts me and makes me wish that I wasn’t so damn sensitive. It reminds me of just how easy it is to fall through the cracks and blend into the concrete of doorways. I don’t usually carry any change anyway and I’m not in a position to spare the change, time or energy to help eradicate the plague that renders people without any form of comfort or security. It hurts me even more because when I was still only a day old to my city I was lost and one of the many people who helped me find my way that day was a homeless person, who’s name, I regret to say, I completely forgot, although I shall never forget his kindness.
But there’s something
internal that clicks when I’m walking down the street and I see a homeless
person. Because I don’t wear ear or headphones on my adventures I know they’ll
ask me if I can spare any change when I’m close. I say politely “No, I’m sorry,
I haven’t got any,” but I can feel my eyes glaze over them as if they are
partially invisible, that I’m looking at a phantom, as I continue to walk on
by.
I know why it hurts me to
do this. I used to wish I could stop and talk to them, ask them how they are
and actually see them, but that was more than a year ago and I’m just not used
to dehumanizing people. I am always aware of the fact that we all have stories
of how we end up wherever we are. And these moments force me to choose my own
safety above others because I never really know if that person is truly
homeless or a rough sleeper because I’ve been told a lot of stories throughout
my life and not all of them have been true.
It’s one of the things I
notice a lot as a single woman going about her business. Sometimes it’s a
struggle to stay positive while maintaining a form of vigilance. Not many
people talked about the dangers of being a single woman walking down the street
at night until Sarah Everard, as if she were the first woman to be murdered on
her way home. Yes, I’m racist in the
thought that the only reason the story stayed in the news so long is because
she was white, but that thought stems from coming from a country where the hue
of your skin dictates how much value your life holds in the public eye. When I
think about that I wonder if I’m unintentionally describing Britain instead of
America.
In June 2020 sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were
found stabbed to death in Fryent country park in north-west London and although
their story made the news and there was a public outcry regarding the
circumstance (MET officers were accused of taking and leaking selfies of the
dead bodies) it pales in comparisons to peoples reaction in March 2021 to
Sarah’s murder.
Nicole was a freelance photographer. Bibaa was a social worker and
mother of one. Sarah was a marketing executive. All three of these women were
an intricate part of their community, each of these women were loved, each of
these women were passionate and dedicated individuals but only most people can
name one. The cases of these three murders are still ongoing and I hope that
their killer is brought to justice (from what I've glimpsed through Google Sarah's has). I saw two memorials for Sara in different
parts of Manchester but I have yet to find any for Nicole and Bibaa.
What I’m trying to do here is
show you the various ways that life and death takes our humanity. In order to
regain some semblance of it we need to remember that every human being has a
parent, every human being was a child at some point in their lives.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a loving multi-racial family. I
was taught to respect others and to respect life, to look at the larger picture
but my feelings about racism stem from the constant media barrage that I
consumed (against my own better judgment and consideration for my well-being)
in my late 20s in America. The 2010s were the beginning the era of mass school
shootings and police brutality against the black body being covered by media
platforms on a wide scale. As a black woman and an ally to the LGBTQ+ community
I couldn’t understand why the only times that the news cared about my
communities were due to a tragedy.
The earth has stopped moving
for me a total of three times so far in my life: it stood still for me on 12th
June 2016, when news of the Pulse nightclub massacre started circulating; it
stood still on May 22, 2017 when news of the Manchester Arena bombing reached
me, it stood still for me when I watched the twin towers fall, live on the news
on the morning of September 11th, 2001. These events shocked and
hurt me to my core. They reminded me that I’m fortunate to have a family that
loves and accepts me and that not everyone else in the world will have that. It
reminded me that in the face of terror, pain, and rage, people will come
together to help, to heal, to grieve, but also to rebuild and to celebrate.
What we see of the world around us is often tainted by a
kaleidoscope of factors. I try to see the value and beauty of each view without
the sheen of fear or judgement but it’s not always possible, but when I strip
it all down to the bare bones of it, the glass is neither half full, nor half
empty, but I’m glad I get to look through it and be a witness to life in the
first place.
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