David Sedaris Just Isn't as Funny Anymore

This is something that I wrote in the summer of 2008 and I come back to it often. This is an edited version that reflects where I'm at now with the issue.
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If you have ever been to a big city away from where you reside, you know what it is like to get a fresh perspective on things. People here in Gap jeans and a Harvard sweater somehow look different from people in Gap jeans and a Harvard sweater in MN. They may be the same person even, but somehow the unfamiliar version is jarringly different. This new spin on the world dulls your view on things you normally are tuned into and highlights those which you tend to miss. In the two (almost three) weeks I’ve been in NYC, that has most certainly been the case. Especially living in a place like Harlem and working in a place on 5th Avenue. Each end of every identity category is graphically illustrated in people I pass on a daily basis. “Brand whores” get into their town cars as people who buy one dollar t-shirts in Union Square cross the street in front of them. The most stereotypically testosterone overloaded men ride the subway next to the most stereotypically effeminate men. And the list goes on and on.

Having spent my 21 years in a socially conscious family who travels a lot, few identity representations make me uncomfortable. They could have pink hair with tattoos and piercing everywhere, I wouldn’t blink an eye. They could be a single white mother with a kid that has only one arm and I wouldn’t think twice about it. I can walk by any person of any color, sexuality, gender, ability level and not even notice them. That is not the case with homelessness.

Its America’s secret. Sure, an academic somewhere in Oregon or Massachusetts puts out numbers that detail how many Americans live in poverty, but no one talks about it. We talk about reforming healthcare and giving our children better education, but none of the means anything if you are sleeping outside.

The common response I get to this (I guess because people think I have guilt that needs to be eased) is that there are shelters and programs to help homeless people if they want it. We shouldn’t give them money because they are going to spend it on booze. They know how to find help if they want it.

But wait…doesn’t that sound a whole lot like the reaction I often get when I detail racism to people? When I point out the pitifully low number of students of color at America’s colleges, I am almost always told that it is their fault (the students of color) because there are so many programs to help them. But I know that is not the case. It’s just not that simple. Going to a program doesn’t get you in college. It doesn’t change the fact that your family doesn’t have enough money for daycare for your siblings, so you have to spend time and energy watching them and cannot study for the ACT (a test written specifically to ensure you wouldn’t do well on). Or that you need to work 40 hours a week to even begin to think about paying for college. Or any of the hundreds of other factors that affect someone’s ability (or inability) to go to college. And how many times have I had to tell people that not all black men are rapists and not all black women are angry?

But I don't think that is even what gets me worked up. Why is it that I see people sleeping on the street on my way to work at an organization that educates foundations, put in a twelve hour work day and see people sleeping on the streets on the way home? I know why that is of course, but sometimes it feels like… the problems we have are so huge, you could work fifty years straight in the world of nonprofits and still always see homeless people on your way to work and on your way home.

I know it might sound like I have middle-class guilt. But I honestly don’t think I do because I’ve been through that stage and I feel differently now. Now it’s frustration.

I walked past a man with a sign on 5th Ave that said ‘Homeless Vietnam Vet’ today. I was running to the Banana Republic to buy a jacket because I spilled broccoli cheddar soup down the front of the silk Banana Republic shirt I wore and I was meeting with board members in an hour. I didn’t give him money because I automatically questioned if he was telling the truth. What kind of human being am I deny a veteran money? Or think that the probability of him lying is so high, I wasn’t willing to risk it and give him the money anyway? What kind of society produces people that make assumptions based on images? What kind of country lets their poorest and underserved men go to war and then not take care of them when they get back? How horrific does it feel to watch thousands of people walk by you and not one stop to help?

Environmentalists criticize me because I spend my energies on race. They tell me there won’t even be a planet to support my children if we don't clean up our act. I tell them that is fine because I don't want to bring a child into this world if they have to face racism. Or sexism. Or homophobia. But both of our causes look like elitists intellectual movements compared to homelessness.

One of the three trains I take to work is an express, so there is a stretch of about five minutes where the train doesn’t stop at a station. Knowing that people cannot run, it is common for people to get on the train and either perform for money or tell their story and ask for money. When people give them donations, they say “God bless you and thank you for your time”. The most disadvantaged people are forced to acknowledge and reinforce their low status in society to get money. Shouldn’t we be the ones praying that they be blessed by God? We have food and a home, so we haven’t we already been blessed? What is wrong with us?

There is a black man who sits in a wheel chair in the 14th Street station everyday. I pass him as I switch from the L to the A train. Usually I note he is homeless and rush by him without making it obvious I looked at him. I always noticed he was hunched over, and assumed it was out of shame or a medical reason. But today I noticed he is hunched because he is drawing. He sells drawings. Illustrations of New York City he does from memory. I saw them and really liked them. Genuinely. I would like to have one and I think my sister would really like them to hang on her bedroom wall. I considered stopping but I didn’t because I felt tears coming so kept going. I didn’t support this man and I denied myself artwork I like because I would start crying if I stopped and talked to him. Who am I??

It didn’t matter that I didn’t stop. I cried anyway, and I’m crying now. Picture this: I am the only white-looking girl on a train to Harlem hiding my tears over poverty behind a book by David Sedaris, a man who not only defines whiteness, but makes being poor sound cool and bohemian. Watching people walk with everything they own in two plastic bags day after day doesn’t convince me that poverty is cool or bohemian.

Oh, as I rushed past the drawing man, I noticed there were two dollars and twenty-five cents in the box he used as a bank. A ticket to get into the subway station costs two dollars.