A Tennessee bill is being debated that would make camping on public property a misdemeanor. Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s already passed. Hey, I don’t live in Tennessee.
Anyway, a Republican state senator, Frank Niceley, brought back memories for me. To illustrate how homeless people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make something of themselves, and have a real impact on history, he used the example of Hitler.
I wrote about this topic way back in May 2002. I was on the editorial committee here at Real Change. We had the job of reviewing unsolicited submissions. And it seems like way too many were coming in making the point that “Jesus Christ was homeless, too, you know.”
We regularly slam-dunked those into the round file.
OK. According to Luke, Jesus was literally born homeless. Then, wow, look what he did with his life. He was a real go-getter wasn’t he? You could even get the idea that being born homeless was the best thing that ever happened to him, huh?
Well, I didn’t care for that perspective. So, in the 2002 column, I countered that sentiment with another like it, but different: “Hitler was homeless, too, you know.”
A few years before World War I, Hitler found himself homeless in Vienna due to a lack of affordable housing there. He resorted to panhandling for a while. He found a hostel to live in, eventually, and then moved on to permanent housing. Then he went on to make his impact on world history, as noted by Rep. Niceley.
Being homeless doesn’t mean you have to die a nobody, is the clear message.
When I brought this up in 2002, some people took issue with comparing homeless people to Hitler. They totally missed the point. The point was, yes, both Jesus and Hitler were at one time homeless, but homelessness didn’t make either what they were. In the column, I said homelessness was not ennobling, but “only a very tiring and dis-abling experience….”
I also made it clear that it happens to all kinds of people.
Homeless people have long made the point that it is absurd to refer to them as The Homeless, as if that were an ethnographic classification. Once, years after I wrote the column, I tried to write a novel demonstrating the absurdity of that idea. The plot concerned a boy who was born into a wealthy, housed family to parents who were shocked to realize at his birth that he was of The Homeless. They were able to tell just by looking at him. It was in his eyes. That their son was born that way was, of course, bound to be embarrassing in later chapters. How would they cope?
I gave up on it because it turns out I don’t have the patience to write novels. I’m a sprinter not a marathon runner. But I think the idea was great. If anyone out there wants it, they can have it. I mean, sure, I could write 50,000 words of it, the problem was it would have needed maybe 10 rewrites to end up being worth reading. No thank you, I thought, I’ll just go back to living.
Speaking of writing, there is another news story dealing with the author of a children’s book (more my speed!) about a unicorn.
Jason Tharp wrote “It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn.” He was scheduled to read from his book at an Ohio elementary school on April 7. But the day before he got a call from the school principal telling him he couldn’t read that book.
It turned out some parent found out about the planned reading and that there was a picture of a rainbow on the back cover, and they objected to children being subjected to the “gay agenda.”
Reading about this, I realized that I never in my life have thought of unicorns as gay. I’ve always thought of them as sexy, but figured they could go either way. Or they could be non-binary. Surely rainbows don’t have an agenda?
Maybe it’s just as well Tharp was stopped. He would only have reinforced the perception that all unicorns are good. Who’s to say a unicorn couldn’t turn out to be a genocidal maniac?
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the Apr. 20-26, 2022 issue.