On this past Sunday, the girlfriend and I were downtown for Day Two of the Emerald City Comic Con. Finding myself cashless after Day One, we had to walk a few blocks to the credit union so we could restock our funds. On the way back, a woman in a wheelchair, who I know to be a beggar, approached us from behind:
“Excuse me,” she said. I immediately retorted:
“I don’t have anything, unfortunately.”
“Oh, no, I was just trying to get around you there,” and she gestured to the sidewalk ramp.
“Oh, I’m sorry. No problem.”
“It’s Ok, I understand.”
Then she engaged us in conversation for the next two blocks. My girlfriend called me a punk for assuming she was going to ask for money. When I told her that I had seen the woman before, she said there’s no way I could have remembered her and that I was just covering for looking like an idiot.
Seriously? At what point have I ever passed a bullshit lie off to cover for my honesty? And why would I even need to in this situation. Firstly, I made a reasonable assumption based on the information I had at the moment while passing through an area (Westlake, Pike Place, etc) fraught with beggars, homeless, and street hustlers. Secondly, I didn’t feel the least bit bad about being wrong. What was there to feel bad about? Thirdly, I contend that had I not jumped the gun, she would have in fact hit us up, and her ongoing line of questioning was in attempt to find an opening to try again. And finally, am I a punk for the situation? Is it any one part or the totality of the events? Is assuming she wanted money the crime or not feeling guilty later on? Let me know in the comments….
This presents a larger issue; profiling. Apologist Seattle gets its panties in a twist when it comes up. They say you can’t just look at someone and know what you’re dealing with, the whole ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ bit. But isn’t our outward appearance a reflection of who we are? If you look homeless, indigent, or otherwise a mess, shouldn’t you expect to be treated as such? And if you aren’t actually homeless. why present yourself that way? It may not be fair, but if you’re a young black man wearing 3XL shirts and huge jeans that sit at your knees, a NY Yankees hat (black, with all the tags still on) turned to the side, a Northface ski jacket in the middle of summer, I’m going to assume you’re a punk wannabe gangbanger up to no good. Don’t like it? Don’t dress like punk wannabe gangbangers. Don’t want to be mistaken for a terrorist? Don’t start praying to Allah at thirty-thousand feet. And if you look homeless, in an area full of homeless people, what do you think people are going to take you for? Most people don’t overtly profile by race, but they do profile by the totality of your presentation. Humanity communicated visually for thousands of years, body language is more expressive than any language on Earth; to cry foul over what is our predominate means of communication is laughable.
Be honest here, folks; those dressing like punk wannabe gangbangers do so because they want you to fear them, to think they’re tough and not to be messed with. It makes them feel stronger and more in control than they actually are. Someone wondering aimlessly around downtown, dressed like a homeless person, is a homeless person. No one presents that image by choice. Everyone with reasonable means dresses to the image and personality they want to convey, and to not judge them accordingly would be antithetical to their very reason for dressing as they do.
Bringing this full circle, I’ll take my lumps when expressing my point of view conflicts with societal norms, but I won’t be thrown under the bus when reality conflicts with the same norms.
