I was sitting in my car at a red light, and as she worked her way across the street, I noticed her shoes didn't match. Her left shoe was a pale tennis-sneaker. The back was folded under her heel. She walked unevenly. Her other shoe was a black boot, low, but still significantly taller than her tennis shoe. She was an older woman, and her clothing was a mish-mash of black and cranberry colored garments draped upon her. Her gray hair was matted beneath a construction hardhat, and her belongings slung over her shoulder in a black trash bag.
That's when I started to weep.
She is a person. One without a pair of shoes to her name. Wearing a helmet. Going somewhere. How can we let this happen? I don't know if she is someone's mother, but she herself was someone's daughter.
I wondered for a moment if there was something I could do for her, but honestly, I didn't know. I knew we were close to the Union Station homeless shelter, and that gave me a little hope. But I also couldn't help thinking about how we are systematically destroying the safety net in our country while simultaneously rewarding the ultra-rich with additional tax breaks. I have no idea what led to this woman's situation, but it saddens me that anyone could become a wandering homeless person - especially in the midst of the wealth that surrounds us.
You may say that I'm bleeding heart liberal, (and I am), but I also know that this poor helmet-wearing woman is not alone. Approximately 1200 people are homeless on any given night where I live in Pasadena California. Some are children. She is literally the tip of the iceberg. And we know for a fact that the gap between the ultra rich and the rest of us is growing. And somehow we think that rewarding these ultra rich people at the expense of everyone else makes sense.
Well it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense from an economic sense and it doesn't make sense from a human sense. Real people are getting crushed by these policies, and honestly, it's only going to get worse for the next two years with Republicans controlling the House of Representives. They want to chip away the meager level of protections that still remain, still bitter about the passage of the New Deal legislation despite the pronounced period of prosperity those policies created.
It makes me nostalgic about one of the great symbols of America, the Statue of Liberty and Emma Lazarus' wonderful poem "The New Colossus", engraved on the statue. We should not lose sight of this vision nor the huddled masses that are near and need our help.
"THE NEW COLOSSUS"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Source: Emma Lazarus, The Poems of Emma Lazarus, vol.1 (1889), 2
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