Please Read This:
Sorry I'm getting bad at this update thing, by the way.
I've had a very interesting past few days. Yesterday I used Peter Stevenson's bike and rode around Richmond for an afternoon. It felt so good, being on a bike again. I'd forgotten what it felt like. My old Schwinn broke years ago. Grandpa Metzler and I tried to fix it one spring, but the rear axle was totally bent and we couldn't do it. So being on Peter's bike -- even though the seat is rock hard -- was good for me. It was good for the soul, ya know? It filled it like gorp fills my tummy. Hikers know what I mean ;-)
( my ideal gorp recipe is equal parts peanuts, raisins, almonds, peanut M&Ms, granola, and a few apricots, by the way. )
So anyway, I'm riding through Richmond. It's a nice city, with many cute one-way streets. It's very small, but they've got everything one needs in a college town -- banks, pizza, accessibility, groceries, and pizza. Stopping by Ike's Bikes (to see about getting one of my own), a black man outside asks me if I've got fifty cents for some food. He's caught me off guard (good for him), so I hand him a dollar. We talk for a little bit, and his mention that he needs some food triggers my memory of the weekly Food Not Bombs food picnic on the 10th street part. That was Saturday, and the food is given out on Sunday. So I tell James about it (his name is James). I tell him the day (Sunday) and time (noon), but I can't remember exactly where it is. I remember seeing flyers about it, though, so I offer to bike back to campus, find a flyer, and come back to tell him where. He thinks it's a great idea, and tells me where I can find him, so I start to bike back to campus. I get about two blocks, and I see a Food Not Bombs flyer on a street lamp. It says that it's at the 10th street park. I start to bike back; why go back to campus now? I see James turn around the block, and I follow him around. I come around and call out to him. He doesn't seem to hear me.
I get right up next to him.
He's wearing headphones.
DOES THIS STRIKE ANYONE AS ODD? I just gave this guy a dollar. And now, here I am, looking right at him and his headphones (which are better than mine, by the way). His quality backpack and relatively clean clothes and shoes are suddenly jumping out at me. I'm asking myself (can anyone guess?), "WHAT THE HELL??"
I tell him about the free lunch. He takes off the headphones, looking a bit startled. I smile, ask him to come, and bike off.
I'm wondering at what I did. I talked it over with Justin, about how I was probably fooled. He told me a similar story that happened to him.
Hey Mom, remember what Buck said when you two were feeding people? "This is not an act of charity; it's an act of justice." I'm wondering about that. That dollar I gave James may have been spent on chips like he said it would be. It may also have been spent on pot, cigarettes, booze, or any number of things that I disagree with. Justin says that he never gives money to people who ask for it. He'll buy them food, but he won't give money. I see that that's the best way to go, safely. But I'm also wondering weather giving food to the poor every week, or even every day, is really justice. Is it just to give them a stable living in a shelter, with three meals a day? Some people really need it, granted, until they get back on their feet. But I know that some people just feed off the system, never intending to get a life, taking dollars from college freshmen who think they're doing a good thing, and spending it on... you know. Is it just to keep a system going that way? How can we teach them to provide for themselves?
Me (to Justin): "Give a man a fish, and he eats a meal. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for life."
Justin: "If everyone fished, there'd be no room on the bank."
Thanks Justin. You're a real pal.
So anyway, I went to the Food not Bombs picnic today. I showed up at the co-op around 10:30 to help make food. I chopped melons :-) I love melons.
We tossed all the food into the back of the little red truck with "It's clean, it's green, it's one powerful bean!" stickers all over it (later learned that it's only 2% powered by soybean produce). Four of us climbed in the back, along with a cute little guitar that had an old deflated bike tire for a strap, and the words "Revolution starts in everyday life" written on it. I played a little as we drove.
We laid out the food on a picnic table in the park. There were a couple guys already waiting for us, and were very cautious approaching the food-laiden table. We invited them over and gave them some curry rice (which tasted EXCELLENT, by the way), and invited them to help themselves to whatever was on the table. They ate the rice very cautiously.
This is what I learned talking with one of them: He grew up in Ohio, and became a hippie in the 60s, moving to New York for a while. He fought against the Vietnam War. He worked in New York in an advertising company. He now lives in Richmond (somewhere), and is unemployed with no prospects. He likes the curry rice we gave him.
I tried to teach him to play the little guitar we had in the truck. He watched as I played a G, then an Em, then a D, and smiled a little (very cautiously). He didn't want to try.
I met another guy later. This is what I learned from him: He lives in a basement of a house down the street from the park, doing odd jobs for the people who will have him. He's a little slow of speech, and in need of some dental, and it didn't sound like he was getting much business. I learned that he likes to play Yu-Gi-Oh!, and spends the money he gets on new cards. He used to play with people at a store in Richmond on Wednesdays. He doesn't like country music.
This is what I didn't like about all of this: The people I came with paid no attention to the people they were feeding. Sure, a few people said "Hi" and "Help yourselves", but soon turned back to their friends. It really struck me. To me, it was a non-verbal declaration of superiority and fear. "We're giving you food, but don't ask for more, because food is all you're getting and we're afraid to communicate with people like you." The hypocrisy of this hit me like a brick. What ever happened to teaching them how to fish??
This was not an act of justice to me, today. It was an act of oppression. We weren't helping them. Just feeding them. I think that the way Food Not Bombs should progress is through communication with the people it feeds. It's one thing to give them food and say "Have a nice day!" It's quite another to give them food and talk to them about what they do, how they've lived, why they're in their current conditions, war, peace, poverty, compassion, anything that needs to be talked about. I'll keep with the program, because I see a lot of potential for it. But I think I'll try to get people to talk with their customers. That might open doors.
More about standard college fare later.
Peace--
I've had a very interesting past few days. Yesterday I used Peter Stevenson's bike and rode around Richmond for an afternoon. It felt so good, being on a bike again. I'd forgotten what it felt like. My old Schwinn broke years ago. Grandpa Metzler and I tried to fix it one spring, but the rear axle was totally bent and we couldn't do it. So being on Peter's bike -- even though the seat is rock hard -- was good for me. It was good for the soul, ya know? It filled it like gorp fills my tummy. Hikers know what I mean ;-)
( my ideal gorp recipe is equal parts peanuts, raisins, almonds, peanut M&Ms, granola, and a few apricots, by the way. )
So anyway, I'm riding through Richmond. It's a nice city, with many cute one-way streets. It's very small, but they've got everything one needs in a college town -- banks, pizza, accessibility, groceries, and pizza. Stopping by Ike's Bikes (to see about getting one of my own), a black man outside asks me if I've got fifty cents for some food. He's caught me off guard (good for him), so I hand him a dollar. We talk for a little bit, and his mention that he needs some food triggers my memory of the weekly Food Not Bombs food picnic on the 10th street part. That was Saturday, and the food is given out on Sunday. So I tell James about it (his name is James). I tell him the day (Sunday) and time (noon), but I can't remember exactly where it is. I remember seeing flyers about it, though, so I offer to bike back to campus, find a flyer, and come back to tell him where. He thinks it's a great idea, and tells me where I can find him, so I start to bike back to campus. I get about two blocks, and I see a Food Not Bombs flyer on a street lamp. It says that it's at the 10th street park. I start to bike back; why go back to campus now? I see James turn around the block, and I follow him around. I come around and call out to him. He doesn't seem to hear me.
I get right up next to him.
He's wearing headphones.
DOES THIS STRIKE ANYONE AS ODD? I just gave this guy a dollar. And now, here I am, looking right at him and his headphones (which are better than mine, by the way). His quality backpack and relatively clean clothes and shoes are suddenly jumping out at me. I'm asking myself (can anyone guess?), "WHAT THE HELL??"
I tell him about the free lunch. He takes off the headphones, looking a bit startled. I smile, ask him to come, and bike off.
I'm wondering at what I did. I talked it over with Justin, about how I was probably fooled. He told me a similar story that happened to him.
Hey Mom, remember what Buck said when you two were feeding people? "This is not an act of charity; it's an act of justice." I'm wondering about that. That dollar I gave James may have been spent on chips like he said it would be. It may also have been spent on pot, cigarettes, booze, or any number of things that I disagree with. Justin says that he never gives money to people who ask for it. He'll buy them food, but he won't give money. I see that that's the best way to go, safely. But I'm also wondering weather giving food to the poor every week, or even every day, is really justice. Is it just to give them a stable living in a shelter, with three meals a day? Some people really need it, granted, until they get back on their feet. But I know that some people just feed off the system, never intending to get a life, taking dollars from college freshmen who think they're doing a good thing, and spending it on... you know. Is it just to keep a system going that way? How can we teach them to provide for themselves?
Me (to Justin): "Give a man a fish, and he eats a meal. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for life."
Justin: "If everyone fished, there'd be no room on the bank."
Thanks Justin. You're a real pal.
So anyway, I went to the Food not Bombs picnic today. I showed up at the co-op around 10:30 to help make food. I chopped melons :-) I love melons.
We tossed all the food into the back of the little red truck with "It's clean, it's green, it's one powerful bean!" stickers all over it (later learned that it's only 2% powered by soybean produce). Four of us climbed in the back, along with a cute little guitar that had an old deflated bike tire for a strap, and the words "Revolution starts in everyday life" written on it. I played a little as we drove.
We laid out the food on a picnic table in the park. There were a couple guys already waiting for us, and were very cautious approaching the food-laiden table. We invited them over and gave them some curry rice (which tasted EXCELLENT, by the way), and invited them to help themselves to whatever was on the table. They ate the rice very cautiously.
This is what I learned talking with one of them: He grew up in Ohio, and became a hippie in the 60s, moving to New York for a while. He fought against the Vietnam War. He worked in New York in an advertising company. He now lives in Richmond (somewhere), and is unemployed with no prospects. He likes the curry rice we gave him.
I tried to teach him to play the little guitar we had in the truck. He watched as I played a G, then an Em, then a D, and smiled a little (very cautiously). He didn't want to try.
I met another guy later. This is what I learned from him: He lives in a basement of a house down the street from the park, doing odd jobs for the people who will have him. He's a little slow of speech, and in need of some dental, and it didn't sound like he was getting much business. I learned that he likes to play Yu-Gi-Oh!, and spends the money he gets on new cards. He used to play with people at a store in Richmond on Wednesdays. He doesn't like country music.
This is what I didn't like about all of this: The people I came with paid no attention to the people they were feeding. Sure, a few people said "Hi" and "Help yourselves", but soon turned back to their friends. It really struck me. To me, it was a non-verbal declaration of superiority and fear. "We're giving you food, but don't ask for more, because food is all you're getting and we're afraid to communicate with people like you." The hypocrisy of this hit me like a brick. What ever happened to teaching them how to fish??
This was not an act of justice to me, today. It was an act of oppression. We weren't helping them. Just feeding them. I think that the way Food Not Bombs should progress is through communication with the people it feeds. It's one thing to give them food and say "Have a nice day!" It's quite another to give them food and talk to them about what they do, how they've lived, why they're in their current conditions, war, peace, poverty, compassion, anything that needs to be talked about. I'll keep with the program, because I see a lot of potential for it. But I think I'll try to get people to talk with their customers. That might open doors.
More about standard college fare later.
Peace--