Im sitting across from Kerry at the Second Cup, ground floor of the Stanley Milner Library downtown. Peter Gabriels In Your Eyes is playing over the PA. Was that really released in 1986? Wow. So, were sharing some quiet time while the boys get settled into their programming class, just sipping coffee and noshing on blueberry muffins. Outside, the usual - the homeless, immigrants, the halt and the lame walk around. Aboriginals congregate on corners and in Churchill square, sharing cigarettes and space. A group of elders here, some young kids over there. An older man plays giant chess with a kid. The respectable and the middle class walk with decidedly more purpose. Im reminded of George Orwells Down and Out in Paris and London, a memoir of his days as a bum in Europe. There was charity, sure. But if you were down and out the idea was there was something wrong with you. That God was punishing you because somehow, somewhere along the way you erred, you were sinful whether you knew it or not. As a tramp, Orwell had to keep moving. There was no opportunity for rest. It was all one foot in front of the other, move-move-move, dont stop here, push on, no loitering, until it was time to check in to the next squalid flop house for a meal of thin gruel, a potato and sanctimonious preaching. Upstairs at the library, there are people sleeping, people aimlessless surfing the internet, people in front of screens large and small. And yes, there are even people reading. Am I privilaged? Absolutely. That I can sit here and write this on my own computer is evidence of that. That we have a library system, coffee and blueberry muffins, a car, a home where I can keep my stuff instead of plastic bags. Am I privilaged because I am white, male and middle class? I dont think so. Been close enough to down-and-out to know the system is indifferent to damn near everything except acknowledging you are nothing in the face of the Outstretched Hand of Government Largesse. Privilage is one of those things like violence or war that doesnt really recognize race. One wrong step, one miscalculation and my first world problems transmogrify into snarling, rapacious beasts hell bent on destroying me. I find as I grow older I become at once less tolerant of human stupidity and more compassionate at another mans circumstance. You can only be master and commander of your own fate for so long. You are only allowed a certain latitutde in conducting your affairs. You follow the basics of the program and dont deviate without consequence. Hammers home the notion if you are not of the elite, then you are either property or hired help. At some point, the rebel retires and everyone buys in. Is this privilage? Is this freedom? Any of us can walk away from this at any time. It can be snatched away from us without warning. I cant complain. On our way here, we somehow got onto the topic of the homeless. There are approximately 3,000 permanent homeless on the streets of Edmonton. Thats not so much that with our wealth, we couldnt at least know them by name, let alone feed, cloth and house them. Privilage. Well, this is a library. Should be some answers here somewhere... youtu.be/fgaYgij-5TA
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 21:41:20 +0000
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