Rest In Peace
“Homeless man found dead had been arrested 92 times”
I remember, not long ago, our local paper reporting the discovery of a body found underneath a downtown overpass. I read the account that morning and immediately knew that it was one of our neighborhood friends who live outside in the open spaces. Throughout the day I took note of who I had not seen while wondering who it was that I would never see again. These days are always the hardest. That night I laid awake thinking of this person living and dying outside the relational structures of our community, while seeking their last place of shelter in and underneath our concrete structures. My last thoughts were filled with wondering did they have last thoughts. As the sound of the traffic rushed overhead, did they know that the thoughts they were having were to be their last, or if they did, what were they? Unanswered prayers with promises made? Or regrets. Regrets that things weren’t different. Regrets that there wouldn’t be a tomorrow, even a tomorrow filled with the despair of homelessness was still a tomorrow. I go to sleep hoping that the mercy of sleep stole away their last thoughts too.
A few days later, the paper reported that the individual had been identified “as that of a 50-year-old homeless man.” Bailey (I’m protecting his name out of respect), is the man who tragically died underneath the overpass, and yes, Bailey was homeless. Thanks to the paper’s staff writer, we also know approximately how many times Bailey had been picked up for public intox, where the majority of those offenses occurred, and even the year that he was first entered into the county’s court system! This is outstanding work. But of course, you may remember this staff writer as the tabulator of homeless arrests from his report on our friend Rodney entitled – “Homeless man found dead had been arrested 92 times.” Bailey, like Rodney, suffered from alcoholism and most of us understand this to be a disease that is exceedingly difficult to overcome, even for those with support systems in place. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that three in ten adults 18 years of age and over have had alcoholism and/or engaged in alcohol abuse at some point in their lives. Most people represented in those numbers however will never be at risk for public intox arrests or the humiliation of having them numbered in the local news because they have homes that conceal and protect them. People who do not have the luxury of a home and are victims of alcoholism are always at risk. And adding to the injury of the disease, they are also at constant risk of the insult and humiliation of those who perpetuate the dehumanizing stereotypes.
“The human herd, when collectively aroused, is the most ferocious beast on the planet.”
Writer and former Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church, Richard Holloway in his book Between the Monster and the Saint says that “The human herd, when collectively aroused, is the most ferocious beast on the planet. It is responsible for every lynching, every act of genocide, every heresy hunt, and every ugly bout of group thinking that has ever afflicted the human community. Sadly, there always seem to be charismatic monsters around who are brilliant at rousing the herd and hypnotizing it into obedient servitude to their terrifying visions.” Injuriously insulting a sick man in public (even after he is deceased), who has no way of privately wrestling with his illness, does not rise near to the level of a lynching or genocide, but it does help to arouse the herd that assumes the posture of criminalizing the homeless. Nor would I suggest that this staff writer and/or the newspaper he works for rise to the level of a monster, but they cannot be completely unaware of the damage they do when they continue to intentionally summarize the identity of homeless individuals by nothing more than quantifying their arrest reports.
This propaganda brainwashes and gives birth to prejudices that effectively crystallize the community’s willingness to see each one of these individuals as one like themselves
We could of course give the staff writer the benefit of the doubt, maybe this is his assigned task at the newspaper. Maybe he’s only following directions. Maybe he’s been put in charge of reinforcing and promoting the homeless stereotypes. But regardless of who is actually responsible for generating these counts, they become both the mouthpiece of and the rallying cry for the herd whose damage it inflicts causes far more harm than just the embarrassing exposure of public name-calling. This propaganda brainwashes and gives birth to prejudices that effectively crystallize the community’s willingness to see each one of these individuals as one like themselves – someone thrown into a unique and specific life context, the earliest stages of which had profound effects, for good or ill, on their subsequent history. We’ve all felt the frustration over an attack on our character or the consequences of an action being cast without being given the chance to explain ourselves – whether to a parent, friend, spouse, or boss. There’s a reason for this, there’s an explanation for that… “let me explain, please!” And to refuse to listen to an explanation, regardless of whether it may change one’s mind, is completely unreasonable and often cruel. These prejudices then become part of the systemic forces that profile and keep people outside the structures of our community, like the refusal to consider a job applicant who doesn’t have a permanent address.
I understand needing to fill space in a paper, feeling like you have to say something, and I don’t know how much effort it took to gather the data on Rodney’s or Bailey’s arrest reports. Maybe not much at all. But I wonder how much more of an effort it would have taken to attempt to find out something about these two men as people. It would be nice to honor the deceased with the “chance to explain.” I’m not a nimble researcher, but it took me about 15 minutes to uncover the fact that Bailey was the son of a Pentecostal Baptist Church pastor in Oneida, TN. He was a retired railroad trainman from the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and past president of the retired Railroaders Club. What I found particularly interesting was that the reverend passed away in 1982, the very same year of Bailey’s first entry into the County court system. Now I won’t presume a scenario without the facts to corroborate, but Bailey would have been about 21 years old when his father passed away and it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to suggest the negative effect that it may have had on him, what support or guiding influence could have been lost. Whatever the case, with minimal exertion, this newspaper’s readers may have been able to come away with a plausible explanation and kinder regard for the man that passed away tucked hopelessly underneath the overpass than what can be gained from a cold accounting of his arrests.
Stay tuned for Joshua’s arrest report
As I write, I am just learning of the body of 29-year-old Joshua (I’m protecting his name out of respect), a homeless person being found underneath the back porch of a local suburban home. The report is written by, you guessed it – the same staff writer. Stay tuned for Joshua’s arrest report.
Finally, to Bailey. I don’t know what unique and specific life context you were thrown into or the forces that came to visit you as you struggled to navigate this life, but I’d like the last words to ever run across a printing press in regard to your life and death to be kinder than the last.
Rest in peace my friend
