Exclusion made visible
Hiding the evidence of how many folk are excluded from our society might help us feel momentarily better. But we will lose the fight to create societies in which no one has to sleep in a doorway.
Dear friends: I arrived home yesterday after spending time at a conference in my beloved Seattle. The conference was inspiring in its focus on improving teaching through student and learning centered practices.
But my walks around the downtown area engendered sadness, even heartbreak.
I never felt unsafe or threatened; it was simply the sheer number of unhoused folk, of people sleeping in doorways and semi-sheltered areas on or near sidewalks, of people walking the streets with all their possessions in tow, of folk in obvious substance-induced distress. Combined with the number of empty storefronts and still-boarded windows, the atmosphere was one of desperation, of clinging to the promise of renewal, but barely.
It was exclusion made visible in a way that it rarely is in my small town (although it certainly exists here, too). Exclusion from any viable means of self-support, exclusion from safe and affordable housing, exclusion from the prosperity that was evident inside the fancy hotel hosting the conference.
I realized that I no longer have energy to spend parsing out why these folks were excluded: systemic issues or personal choices. The heartbreak is that they are excluded, to the extent that the streets hold them at night, the public library and drugstores hold them during the day, forming the thinnest safety net, one that cannot help but rip and fray.
During my few days in Seattle, the U.S. president visited. I wonder what he saw, or if this desperation and exclusion was screened from his view.
All over the world, people are being asked determine what kind of leadership, politics, economies, can include all of us. The work of peace - global, national, local - is the work of inclusion and humanization of every person. It is the work of planet-tending to ensure clean air, drinkable water, fertile earth to sustain life.
If we turn away or screen off the evidence of how many folk are excluded, we might feel momentarily better. But we will lose the fight to create societies in which no one has to sleep in a doorway.
Be safe and well and keep up the good work.
P.S. The photo below was taken near the Pike Place Market; there is always beauty in nature, even in the core of a city.