Blame the Homeless

It’s gotta be the fault of homeless people, y’all—for realz!

I get a similar knee-jerk reaction when I see homeless people, or anyone I perceive as having failed to maintain a sustainable existence for themselves. As close as I’ve hovered to homelessness—likely due to a lifetime of undiagnosed mental illness—you’d think I knew better. If not for the fortune of having had access my whole life to resources that mitigate my outright ineptitude when it comes to managing my time, my health, my finances and relationships, it is very unlikely I’d be alive, much less the holder of a couple of fine arts degrees.

I jumped to judgement with an almost ferocity when I saw Kiki shuffling past me. I had heard them coming for several minutes. I recoiled from this person who showed signs of overexposure to the elements. When the dark-skinned being (perhaps of age thirty), reeking to me of destitution, tripped on a potted plant at the entrance of the coffee shop—The Red Hook on Agnes—and then entered abruptly, I was prepared for a scene about being injured and lawsuits.

I was still in judgement when Kiki came from the place holding a sixteen-ounce container of milk. I may have held my breath when the person started by me in the direction from which they had plodded. It was when Kiki sat on the bench directly across the pavement from the small metal table and chairs where I’d laid claim, that I defied my jerking knees and said “hello”. Kiki replied, pitched sweetly. Tuning into them even to greet open end me to the cuddly nature of this person on whom a flash before I’d been focusing hostility.

I learn Kiki was from Battle Creek, Michigan, the birthplace of Kellogg’s. Kiki’s mother had moved to Detroit to live with a boyfriend, and Kiki had followed. Within two years the home had been lost and Kiki had become a self-described homeless person. We talked: I shared about myself. We talked about the state of the world. Kiki was optimistic. The conversation felt like a blessing and I would categorize Kiki as a Goddess, probably of the ilk of Dhumavati, The one who teaches of the fleeting nature of material existence, but also helps us to recognize abundance and, ultimately teaches us that these are illusions.

Our conversation was interrupted by a female- and Black-presenting perdón who politely asked that Kiki please move down the street so as not to be so close to the cafe. The person balked at my suggestion they perhaps buy Kiki some food and then try their request. They balked at anything that might have required them to recognize Kiki as a human of agency, including confirming Kiki’s pronoun. The excuse the concerned person gave was that Kiki was bringing down property values and that Kiki made Black people look bad.

Kiki shared a belief that most people are good and that only a few loud busy disrupters make a mess of so much of life. I left Kiki to what way might be made, surviving as part of the same chain. The universe is holding us.

— Notorious Pink