HAVE YOU NOTICED

...the people panhandling at intersections all over America!!! Who are they? Pay attention and do a little critical thinking about why the people are there who are there and why the people who are not there are not there.

The scene is always the same: the man or woman stands in the median holding a panel of cardboard (one edge torn) with big, hand-printed message. “UNEMPLOYED VETERAN”; “HUNGRY PLEASE HELP”; “I MAY BE UGLY BUT I STILL NEED TO EAT”; “SINGLE MOM NEED HELP”; and dozens of others ranging from attempts to be cute to heart-rendering pleas for mercy.

I do a good bit of traveling around the world and around America, and one of the things I have noticed in Europe is that there are very few panhandlers standing out in traffic begging for money. In America I have noticed that the panhandlers holding signs at America intersections are almost never Latino, Asian, Middle-Eastern, or Black. Now here’s where it might be a good idea to do some critical thinking. While picturing in your mind the people begging at American intersections, try to recall a mental image from TV news coverage of the people in town meetings around the country who are objecting to President Obama's health care program. I know it’s an intuitive leap that will give some people a reason to say, “There he goes again,” but think about it. Where are people of color in all this? Not many of them are among the protesters, and not many are begging at our street corners. I'm guessing that the majority of those people who are raising Cain at political rallies are assuming that the people who will be first in line to get something free from the government will be people of color. Is it possible that hidden way down deep in the American psyche lies a firmly-planted belief by many people who object to a proposed health plan for ALL AMERICANS... that “all americans” should not be given something by government because some of the people who claim to be Americans aren’t legitimate... based on an irrational fear that a program of help that would cost “the rest of us,” the legitimate Americans, money that we shouldn’t be asked to spend on deadbeats... and that “deadbeats” are mostly people of color... AND that way down deep in the psyche of many Americans lies a belief that people of color are basically not legitimate Americans... AND there may be a deep-down, unverified, based-only-on-gut-prejudice that out there in America most of the people who are deadbeats, people depending on government for what they need, people who want something for nothing... able-bodied, lazy, good-for-nothing men mostly, hanging around doing nothing except maybe pimping women who mostly sell their bodies and call it work... that mostly, the deeply engrained prejudice says, “those people” are people of color.

Now, here’s the easy part: What do you make of the apparent fact that the people begging with their cardboard signs at our intersections are NOT people of color? In San Diego, where I live, I see mostly the same cast of characters at the same intersections; and they are white. In other cities the beggars with the signs are mostly white. Why is that? What does it mean? And what does it mean that most of the ten thousand people protesting the President’s health care program at a big ralley on the Mall in Washington were not people of color. What does it mean?
THE NATIONAL GALLERY is alive and well. This is the people's museum... a United States Government museum, free to everybody who comes to the door. Is this an example of socialism? Where do they want to draw the line...these people who object to government involvement in our lives?
America is still working. This project is located on Rockville Pike across from Whiteflint Mall in Maryland.