Classism & Homelessness: The Last Great American Prejudice

I want to foreword this post by saying that I do not believe racism, sexism or homophobia have been eradicated from our society I just believe it is less societally acceptable to perpetuate those prejudices than it is to be classist.

Recently I found myself questioning this idea of the acceptability of classism. I was a at gathering where there were few people I had met before. The conversation turned to homeless people, as Portland has a very large homeless population due to the availability of many social assistance programs and a vibrant street culture. A popular pastime of Portlanders (it seems) is to share stories about homeless encounters and generally bash the homeless population over drinks in a cosy atmosphere.

The partygoers exchanged various tales of how awful homeless people were here and how terrible it was to walk to work and run into someone begging for spare change. They waxed on how these people were just taking advantage of society, how they were lazy, how they were undeserving of human interaction.  The equation of negative interactions being much worse than what it is like being homeless is disingenuous, selfish and disgusting. I admit I have become desensitized to this bashing, but that evening the length of the sport became so protracted that I made up an excuse to leave with another friend of mine who afterwards shared his feelings of disgust about the attitudes of the other partygoers.

What fascinates me is people’s inability to conceptualize homeless people as people. They reduce them to nonhuman entities worthy only of revile and ignoring. I find this highly disturbing and problematic, especially as it has become so easy to fall out of your class now. There are many people who are becoming homeless who were middle class before. Foreclosures, banks, mental healthcare, job scarcity and a rise in living costs have all contributed to this. I think this is compounded by American society’s “bootstrap” idealization of success. People are measured by how well they survive on their own. We put very little validity on helping others and creating community. I say “we” but I really mean White upper-middle class capitalist Christian thinking (there are numerous communities in the United States such as Native Americans and Jewish people which are the opposite).

I have known people in my life who have become homeless temporarily or for long periods of time and I tried to help them in whatever way I could. One of my friends related to an acquaintance of mine that I was the only person he had known in his previous life before he had to sleep under a bridge that actually still spoke to him and acted as if nothing was different. I remember him still. I treated him with dignity and respect as I would treat all people. My friend was a homeless person. Homeless people are after all, people.

I encourage you to think about that next time you decide to join in some bitching about how annoyed you were that someone asked you for change. Keep your classism to yourself.

Cultural Diversity & Portland's White Heterosexual Middle Class Monoculture: An Open Letter to Meg Descamp

Dear Meg, I recently received a copy of my alma mater's alumni news magazine and your article "Is Portland really Portlandia?" angered me. I am frustrated especially in light of the recent Blackface incident in North Portland. You detailed a "cultural diversity" here in our city that I don't agree with. You wrote, They [the young professionals] are committed to Portland and to all the city has to offer: cultural diversity, natural beauty, and a progressive political and social climate.The irony-cum-hypocrisy was especially poignant with the photo of all the lily-white faces at Ms. Tunstall's sewing factory. Seriously?

Please explain to me how a city that is 76% White is culturally diverse. A city where Mars Hill Church, an unabashedly homophobic and sexist religious organization set up shop in what was once a hippy heartland (the Hawthorne neighborhood). How is a city progressive when it can't solve its issues with homelessness, rampant gentrification and when the police force has admitted that it racially profiles? How can a city call itself "liberal" when it consistently votes against police accountability and statutes to assist the homeless?

The "cultural diversity" buzz phrase really angers me the most. Portland is home to a large DIY, sustainable/green, crafty organic type of culture, but it is still a monoculture practiced by mostly White upwardly mobile Middle Class heterosexuals who want to dye themselves as unique and progressive. It's still just a monoculture.

How does that qualify as diverse? That is not diversity. Bike lanes, pop-up shops and organic grocery stores are not diversity. This is especially true when they are here to serve the monoculture. To call Portland diverse insults the experience of the poor, the people of color and the queer folks who have to somehow exist within the phobic, classist and Whitewashed culture that Portland has created.

Please stop ignoring us.

Sincerely,
A community member.

Classism & Shoplifting Accusations: Why Intersectionality Matters

I went to a popular/famous bookstore here in Portland yesterday to find some thank-you cards and a gift for my friend. The device to enter my debit card password was acting up and the cashier treated me like it was my fault.

This reminded me of the time I was accused of stealing by one of their managers...I had been reading in the café there for my anthropology class and when I left, the security system went off. The security guard stopped me and the manager went all passively apeshit as they are wont to do here. She was very condescending and the security guard kept trying coerce me into admitting that I knew him. I was adamant in my refusal and denial. The item in question was a  book that I had bought at my college bookstore. It even had the sticker from that store still on it and was filled with my reading notes! It wasn't my fault that they couldn't find their only copy. It was humiliating.

I am aware that I am very White-passing, so I do not think that race was playing a factor. I do think that class was. When I was in college I dressed gothy or grungy (because it was cheap) and favored hoodies. I also had prominent piercings. I don't wear expensive looking clothes. I dress differently at work, but when I'm on my own time I dress how I please. What I notice is that people definitely treat me differently depending on the context and the clothing I'm wearing at the time. You never see well-dressed people being accused of stealing. This is why intersectionality matters. We have to be aware of all these things and how they work together.

Needless to say, I don't shop at that bookstore very often now.

Driving Miss Gaga

"Are Latinos supposed to be grateful that a white superstar, born of privilege, included a racist shout out to our community? Not all Latino ladies are 'cholas' in the barrio, some of them are teachers, writers, engineers and nurses and doctors." -- Robert Paul Reyes

A while back I wrote an article praising the Estonian technopop artist Kerli Kõiv because she represents what I think a true musician should be: modest, compassionate and real. For juxtaposition I am going to talk about Stefani Germanotta better known as Lady Gaga.

I have remained silent for the most part in my dislike of Lady Gaga. I am not a fan of attention-seeking stunts or high fashionistas. I am especially not into mainstream American pop music and Lady Gaga is arguably mainstream.

My real beef with her though, is her privilege. She is from a wealthy background (she used to party with Paris Hilton), she is conventionally attractive, and she is cisgendered, White and skinny. Her inability to accept any of this is troubling.

Somehow there was some kind of rumor that Lady Gaga came from a poor background and that she made herself from nothing, this is patently untrue. In her wikipedia article she is quoted as having said that her family came from modest means and that her parents worked for everything. Her private school upbringing and matriculation to the exclusive Tisch School of the Arts at NYU say otherwise. I have heard the argument before, about parents working hard. My parents worked hard, my dad put himself through medical school on scholarships and crappy cleric positions, but that doesn't mean my sister and I grew up with little means. I have no problem accepting and deconstructing my class privilege.

Another issue with Gaga's privilege is her racism. People hailed her single "Born This Way" as the newest "gay anthem". Hold up, what? I gotta wonder, have these people even read the lyrics: "YOU'RE BLACK, WHITE, BEIGE, CHOLA DESCENT

YOU'RE LEBANESE, YOU'RE ORIENT".

Excuse me, but that is racist. It is tacitly agreed that using the word "Oriental" is about the same as using the word "Negro" and wholly inappropriate. Political correct-ness aside, this was a stupid word to use in a song dubbed progressive. Orientals are rugs, not people. (Ed. I understand that she didn't use the word "Oriental" precisely but she did truncate the word to fit her rhyme, she refers to races in this line so arguably the word "orient" was referring to "Oriental" or Asian. So STFU.)

Furthermore, the word "chola" is problematic too. The term was originally used as a designation for people of mixed or pure Amerindian descent in the racist classification system of colonial Latin America. The word presently has come to refer to "low income Mexican-American families in the United States" or "Latino gangsters". (see Wikipedia article here). Miguel Perez, of Chicanos Unidos further elucidates in this article. Basically, Gaga is relegating all Latinos to this designation of poor and criminal.

Also, what is this beige bullshit? I guess that's my category.

I just want people to see Lady Gaga for who she is. She is not "weird" or unattractive, that is her makeup and clothing. She is skinny, she is White and she dresses as our society prescribes for her biological gender. What is special about 

that?

It's easy to be angry with all of this, but in the end it's like my boyfriend said this morning,“When we're talking about Lady Gaga and Madonna, we’re not talking about women; we’re talking about clothes and makeup.”

(Ed. note: Also, see Lady Gaga's "Little Monster" fans respond to Miguel Perez's article Warning! Very triggering.)

Speaking up, speaking out

Lately I am running out of things to say, it seems. I have been harping on the same subjects over and over and to what end? There have been myriad encounters and stories like my previous post here in this city. It's something that doesn't seem like to change. I want to challenge people to think outside their privilege and see the reality of our society but at the same time I am having issues getting past the anger I feel when I am being discriminated against. 


I'm tired of being told that I'm demasiado intenso, that I just need to have a positive outlook, that I shouldn't be so mean. Most of the people telling me this are my White friends. It probably doesn't help that most of my friends here are White...but what do you expect? My cousin Armenia, on the contrary, reinforces me against giving in to complacency. She thinks it is a positive trait that I am so outspoken and that I will confront people who are being racist/homophobic/classist/sexist etc. 


I guess the issue is that I need to find some happy medium without giving up the fight. I think maybe that I don't have to be so combative, but I also don't have to stay silent.

Under the Table (a Tale of S. W. B.)

I don’t like screaming the r word, I really don’t. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt, I swear! I don’t want to be seen as the Cassandra that is cursed so that no one listens to her warnings.  I understand that people get tired of talking about it…but that’s complacency you know. It is just an excuse for complacency.

Anyway, I was downtown last afternoon, more specifically in the Pearl District (see: Gentrification Vs. Development) waiting for an interview at an art college when I decided to kill some time while I waited by going into Sur La Table. This place is a hoity-toity kitchenware store right across from Powell’s books, catering mostly to upper-echelon foodies and culinary hobbyists. They even have cooking classes.  There only other location in the area is in Lake Oswego.  Should have been my first warning, right? Mistake No.1.

Whatever. I’m dumb like that.

I walked in and was immediately but passively accosted by the phenomenon I (not so) fondly refer to as “Shopping While Black”, or SWB. This is related to the phenomenon known as Driving While Black. Basically, when one walks into a “finer” shopping establishment and does not fit the nice-rich-White- lady/gentleman stereotype, one is subject to this phenomenon. It can manifest as employees following you around the store, being overeager to direct you to a particular section of the store (clearance, for instance), positioning themselves between you and the exit or even telling you that they don’t carry “those kinds of items here.” Yeah, I’ve heard that before too. 

So at Sur La Table, the second I walk in, a blonde NWL comes right up to me to ask if I can be helped with anything. Normally I just say no, but this time I asked about frying pans (Mistake No. 2) and she directed me to said section, and explicitly pointed out the two-for-one deal. As if. She hovers a bit, till finally I kindly and passively let her know that I’m just browsing and she can fuck of somewhere else. I’ve already been subjected to two examples of SWB, but then I notice immediately that she wanders away to the end of the display case-created “hall” where she positions herself in the way of main exit, pretending not to be watching me. Right. Like I don’t know what she’s doing. Loss prevention my ass.

At this point I am pissed off and definitely not going to buy their overpriced Scandinavian cookware. I walk around from the pans, wipe my hands on a few baking trays out of spite and then continue around to the main exit so as to not walk by this NWL. She, of course, pops out from her completely obvious station as Guarder Against the Poor in Our Store (did that make you chuckle?) and wishes me a nice day.

I didn’t even look at her. Bitch.

Normally I get over occurrences of SWB after a few hours and a few cigarettes. I woke up however, a day later, still pissed off. I ranted on the phone to my mother about it, who has resigned herself already to the fact that this isn’t ever going to change. She suggested dressing up super nice and just trying to interact with the same employee to teach her a lesson. I, in turn, wanted to call up rant at the manager, lie and say that I was a relative of Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa) because, 1) being half-Jewish I decided that we were related and 2) that she would never support Sur La Table again after I related this experience to her. 

In the end, this being untrue and probably unhelpful to my blood pressure and karmic state, I decided to just give them a nasty YELP review and write this blog.

The End.

Portlandia

This happened to me recently, with all good timing considering the new television from IFC about our "fair" city. It's the brain child of Fred Armisen. At one point in an interview about the inspiration for the series, Armisen and Bronstein  refer to Portland as "Whiteland", and how it made an impression on them how white upper-middle class it is.  And then this happened...


Every day at work I walk down to the Urban Grind on my break to buy the 99 cent ginger ale that I need to get me through the rest of the day. On this particular day I walked in and was waiting by the counter while the barista finished making some mocha contraption for this tall, lithe blonde hipster lady. Typical Portland hipster girl attire: boots, pageboy haircut, skinny jeans and some kind of artsy blouse. 


What struck me was that she was talking to the barista about how she had moved here from some other place and how great she found Portland. The barista mentioned that she had moved from California. The hipster girl gushes on about how great Portland is and how she just LOVES it here. She feels so free! 


That's when I had an epiphany. That is what Portland is for these liberal white 20-30 somethings. It is a paradise to "escape" to from their veritable hell of some Republican small town (Midwest, the South, take your pick). Portland is this bastion of liberal culture and free thinkers, oh and eco-awareness (yeah, right!). The thing is though...they're all White and upper-middle class. How are you changing the world by moving to a place that just has people like you, that think like you? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to change the minds of those "Republicans" you dislike so much? What are you really escaping to but another bubble of ignorance? Food for thought.


As for Portlandia, I don't think it's very funny. It does, however, get the stereotypes about Portland spot-on. So if you hate trendy Portland as much as I do, then you should watch an episode just for that.


Cheers!