Stereotypes

This past week we had a run that was very eventful. We had a big group that came out, which means more and more people are hearing about us and want to get involved!
The main thing that happened that night occurred at the Tannery. Two different groups went there at separate times, and both noticed the police presence. The first group went down and began to talk with the men there. However, an argument broke out between them and they weren’t really paying attention to the group. The argument was about one of the men who was very obviously intoxicated and was trying to push alcohol on others. The men who usually stayed at the Tannery didn’t want him there because he was attracting attention and making them look bad. By the time the group left, a police officer had come over. The second group saw much of the same thing when they went.
We talked about this in the debrief. It was a way of seeing the stereotypes of what it means to be homeless or hungry broken a little. Just because there was one man who was acting in that way, doesn’t mean the others are. In fact, he was shunned by all of the people around him. There is a community there, and they don’t want someone coming in and making their community into something that is negative. They just want to live their lives the best way they can. And the one thing that stuck with me was, even amid the fighting over this man, we still got thank yous and felt the gratitude from the people who did take the sandwiches. We all need to remember to look at people has human beings, not as what society tells us they are supposed to be.