First Person: For a Woman on the 6 Train
By Billy WhartonFrom the May 15, 2009 issue | Posted in Local | Email this article
I admit to being a thick-skinned New Yorker. After nearly 40 years living here, there is little that can happen in this city that would evoke an emotional response. This is particularly true in the subways. Rats run across the tracks. People commit any number of lewd public acts on a daily basis. Just a month ago, a drunken fellow passenger decided to convert the subway into a urinal. Fleeing passengers seemed to revel more in the spontaneous camaraderie of the experience than disgust in the offensive act. Things changed during a recent ride on the 6 train.
In the past few months, there has been a noticeable difference in the homeless population I have encountered above and below ground. Most New Yorkers (myself included) have become accustomed to the city created during the violent regime of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Intent on enforcing his “quality of life” agenda, Giuliani used the police to drive the homeless out of public view. The severity of the economic crisis is reversing this. The homeless are back in New York City. There are more homeless, many more — new people with fewer of the habits and appearances of hardened street people.
On April 3, I rode the 6 train downtown to participate in a protest against Wall Street. A woman entered the train at 42nd Street. She appeared to be in her late 20s, neatly dressed, with all appearances of a sturdy working-class person. Noticeably pregnant, she had a clean jacket, relatively new shoes and neat hair. As she sat down, I and others noticed a handwritten note clipped to her bag. It read, “I have a six-year-old girl. I am pregnant. We have been forced into a homeless shelter. Please, God help.” She sat with a hand out meekly looking for donations.
The role of a public beggar was too much for her to handle. After a few moments, she began to sob. She cried deeply, the kind of crying normally reserved for the most intense, private moments in your life. Tears streamed down her cheeks. We were witnessing the destruction of another human being’s identity — her self-respect poured out one tear at a time. Passengers tried to help by placing dollar bills in her hand or offering a tissue to wipe her face. Dollars and tissues could not solve this problem.
I sat across from her, paralyzed. Sure, I was off to a demonstration to condemn the economic crisis that likely forced her and her children into the street, but what could I do immediately? I left the train quite shaken. As it pulled away from the platform, I turned to catch a final glimpse of the woman slumped in the seat, still crying.
This woman is not alone. Homelessness is clearly on the rise in New York City. The city’s Department of Homeless Services has reported a more than 20 percent increase in requests for shelter each month since September. Food pantries throughout the city are reporting high demand and declining donations as the economic crisis deepens. Scheduled budget cuts will simply accelerate the problem. Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to cut a program that offers mediation between distressed tenants and landlords to prevent homelessness. If it wasn’t bad enough, Bloomberg also proposes to cut the home cleaning products provided to people leaving the shelter system.
No need for a socialist sermon here. The situation this woman has been put in is a clear illustration of the inhumane currency of capitalism. Destroying her self-esteem and endangering her children, born and unborn, does nothing to improve society. It dehumanizes everyone by forcing us to rationalize things like human suffering brought on by homelessness.
There are, however, those of us who refuse to see something rational or inevitable in this woman’s condition. For this woman on the 6 train I dedicate my mind, my hands and my heart to building a democratic socialist society in which she can enjoy guarantees to things like housing, healthcare and useful work. This would be a new social basis of freedom from which to build an identity. In the meantime, the economic crisis will produce many more instances of human degradation. The choice is ours: Grow thicker skin or more justice.
Billy Wharton is the editor of the Socialist Webzine. His article, “Obama is No Socialist. I Should Know,” appeared in the Washington Post March 15.
2 Responses to “First Person: For a Woman on the 6 Train”
May 19th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
As a minister whose primary ministry is outreach to and advocacy for the street homeless, this article saddens but does not surprise me. Yes, homelessness is up - dramatically - despite Bloomberg’s claim that he would reduce it by at least 30%. The DHS is hopelessly dysfunctional - and wrong-headed - in its plans to close homeless shelters, cut back hours at (or eliminate) drop-in centers, and particularly in eliminating faith-based beds. And in addition to the Bloomberg outrages against the homeless stated in the article, there is the newest revelation that Bloomberg is actually charging the homeless to stay in the shelters - perhaps the most Kafka-esque, and mean-spirited, plan ever conceived. Not simply “regressive,” it is cruel.
The local (and national and global) economic crisis is almost certainly creating more homeless people - and will continue to do so. (And the number of “marginal” people - those within a hair’s breadth of homelessness, has grown even more dramatically.) Yet instead of “helping the least of these,” Bloomberg, the DHS and others seem to be doing everything they can to make it more difficult for the homeless. At best, this is clueless and tragic; at worst, it borders on criminal negligence.
The problem is multi-faceted - it includes economics, housing, mental health, and other factors - and thus demands a multi-faceted approach. Yet no such approach has ever been discussed, much less attempted. Because the most critical factor is: political will. And, sadly - no, tragically - the political will to truly tackle the homeless situation is simply not there. Oh sure, we hear lots of lip service, and get some band-aids and a few hand-outs. But the roots of the problem, and the downward spiral of homelessness, have never been addressed with anything even resembling the sense of urgency they demand.
Why not tell the truth? To Bloomberg, the homeless are human detritus, and the sooner they are gotten rid of - whether into overcrowded and dangerous homeless shelters (to which not one of my charges will go, preferring the street), or swept under the proverbial rug - the better.
Rev. Ian Alterman
Spirit Fellowship Ministries
New York, NY
May 15th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Hi. Man, what a heart-wrenching scene. Disgusting. i tend to target W.H.O. numbers, and point to the 20,000 under-age-five children that die PER DAY… from lack of basic survival supplies… but this is nearly as-bad. Us socialists tend to avoid competition, so “as-bad” is irrelevant. Bad is bad. ALL of it needs fixing. There’s actually LOTS of crying going on all across the USA and world, it just mostly happens unseen… behind the doors, blinders, and rose-colored glasses. Americans, and almost ALL materialists… seek “nice”, predominantly. Materialists/ownership-lovers/capitalists… do “monkey see no evil, monkey do no evil” when around things that could leave a bad taste in their mouths.
“Forsaking and Isolating - The Negligent-Homicide REAL Phenomenon - already infesting a neighborhood NEAR YOU!”
Thanks for the piece and for the warmhearted attitude, Billy. You’re A-OK in MY book. Maybe YOU aren’t going to do a rant, but I am.
Readers… capitalists… you guys/gals DO see the pyramid scheme symbol on the back of the USA one dollar bill, right? You DO see the servitude infestation in capitalism, right? And do you see the “pay up or lose your wellbeing” Chicago mob-like felony extortion widespread within capitalism? Do you see the “join or starve” felony extortion done to the 18 year olds… by this ugly competer’s church called capitalism? See how forcing competer’s religions onto 18 year olds… kills membership in the cooperator’s church (Christianity/socialism)?? Do you understand that AmWay (American Way) (New World Order) got “the exclusive” (legal tender) on the TYPE of survival coupons (money) accepted in supply depots (stores) and leverages 18 years olds into the organization via that felony activity as well? (It puts AmWay-coupon slaving requirements called price tags… on all the survival goods). Do you understand how farmyard pyramids work… from your childhood?? Remember?? Upper 1/3 are “heads in the clouds” while the kids on the bottom ALWAYS GET HURT from the weight of the world’s knees in their backs? Still with me? Do you see anything illegal, immoral, or just plain sick… in any of this pyramid scheme’s activities?
Us American Christian socialists are still patiently awaiting the natural fall of the pyramid-o-servitude, or the busting of the free marketeers felony… by the USA Dept of Justice. Us Christians are VERY CLOSE to issuing a cease and desist order until the servitude and inequality goes away… which means it turns into a commune. Commune is a word we LOVE when used in the word “community”… but its one the caps HATE when used in the term “commune-ism”. Go fig. PROGRAMMED!!
Do a Google IMAGE SEARCH for ‘pyramid of capitalist’ to see a full color picture made way back in 1911, when capitalism was first discovered to be a con/sham instigated by the Free Masons/Illuminati. Folks sure bought into the thing… hook, line, and sinker just the same. The caps didn’t even check if a string was attached! Now THAT’S easy fishing, eh?
Time to level the felony pyramid scheme called capitalism. Abolish economies and ownershipism worldwide, and hurry. Economies just cause rat-racing, and rat-racing causes felony pyramiding. BUST IT, America! Look to the USA military supply/survival system… (and the USA public library system) for socialism and morals done right. Equal, owner-less, money-less, bill-less, timecard-less, and concerned with growth of value-criteria OTHER THAN money-value. Quit doing monetary discrimination immediately, and make it illegal. There are MANY measurement criteria of “value”… not just dollars. Try morals, efficiency, discrimination-levels, repairability, etc etc. Economies are cancerous tumors, and to cheer for their growth… is just insane. Profiting causes inflation, so if caps LIKE inflation, and if they LIKE a terrible time in afterlife when they meet the planet’s ORIGINAL OWNER before caps tried to squat it all with ownershipism, then keep it up with the felony pyramiding. I dare you. While us Christians are finally bulldozing that pyramid scheme back to level, lets make servitude and “join or starve” (get a job or die) illegal in the USA, and lets level the architecture seen in USA courtrooms, too. Right now, USA courtrooms are church simulators or “fear chambers”, by special design. Sick.
Isn’t that back-of-the-dollar pyramid… a Columbian freemason symbol? And WHERE is the USA gov located? District of Columbia? (Not even part of the USA!). How much more blatant can ya get? The “Fed” runs a pyramid scheme called the free marketeers. If you’re using the “federal reserve note” certificates, or using no-other-living-thing-on-the-planet entitles of ownership, you’re bought into a servitude/slavery con/sham… called capitalism. Pyramiding 101.
Larry “Wingnut” Wendlandt
MaStars - Mothers Against Stuff That Ain’t Right
(anti-capitalism-ists)
Bessemer MI USA