The Myth of Fingerprints
There's no doubt about it
It was the Myth of Fingerprints,
I've seen 'em all
And, man, they're all the same.
-- Paul Simon
I call him Sarge. I see him every day in
his loose-fitting Army jacket, holding his sign, "Homeless--Need Help"
and eyeing the cars stopped at the light. He stands at the bottom
of the exit ramp, where I wait to make a left, our mutual discomfort obvious
when we catch each other's stares through my windshield.
It seems to come as a relief to both of us when
the light finally turns green and I can drive on, toward home. Where
he goes, later in the night, I have no idea.
Over the past months, I've noticed a strange phenomenon.
So much a fixture at my exit ramp, like the traffic light itself, Sarge
seems unchanging. The same jacket, same hand-painted sign, same baleful
expression. It's I who change, sometimes daily.
Some days, for example, I feel sorry for him, and
hand him a couple of dollars through the window. He's a tragic figure,
and I'm the lucky one, with a job and a home, a position in society.
There but for the grace of God go I, etc.
Other days I see his forlorn countenance in a broader
context: Sarge-as-victim, a Vietnam vet who fought in an unpopular war
and returned to an ungrateful nation. Now homeless, friendless, he's
dropped through the cracks of a woefully inadequate social welfare system,
whose very foundations were further dismantled during the Reagan years.
I sit behind the wheel, engulfed by liberal guilt, lamenting the failed
promise of the 60's and my own yuppie-like complacency.
But then there are other times...like when I'm
coming home from a long, hard day at work. I feel stressed-out, unappreciated
and generally pretty sorry for myself.
On these days, as I pull up to the light and Sarge
holds up his sign, I don't see a victim of ill fortune or an uncaring society.
I see a bum who ought to get a job, earn a living like I have to.
I actually hear the words forming in my head, Ya know if this guy really
wanted a job, he could get one...
No question about it, people like Sarge are like
projective tests for the rest of us. Whether they inspire pity, guilt,
or outrage, our reactions to the homeless say volumes about us and practically
nothing about them.
That's why most of our political responses to the
problems of the disenfranchised--the homeless, the urban poor, those we
label mentally ill--don't work. We propose solutions as though we
actually see these problems clearly (and thus know how to deal with them),
when in fact our own experiences and beliefs color our perceptions.
To a conservative Republican, the less fortunate
among us lack initiative, or a sense of personal responsibility.
To a liberal Democrat, social programs are necessary to level the playing
field for those economically, racially or educationally disadvantaged.
(To a Christian fundamentalist, I suppose, the poor suffer as a result
of Manifest Destiny; i.e., if they'd been graced by God in the first place,
these troubles wouldn't be happening to them.)
No matter what end of the spectrum one theorizes
from, however, the observational stance is the same: the poor and homeless
are the other. Other than me. Other and apart.
Paul Simon in a song from the Graceland album,
calls this perceived separation between people "The Myth of Fingerprints."
If so, it's a powerful one, as recent political events have shown.
From the victory of California's anti-immigrant initiative, symbolic of
the polarizing sweep of the November elections, to the publication of the
Bell Curve (which proposes a kind of caste system based on IQ), to the
latest terrorist bombing in the Middle East...from the misguided to the
truly monstrous, our tendency is to label, demonize and even destroy those
that are different.
But what if, at a deeper level, there was no difference
at all? Religion and philosophy, stripped of dogma, have emphasized
this possibility for eons. Jesus said, "What you do for the least
among you, you do for me." The Buddha's salient illumination was
that "All are one," Emerson writes of the Over-Soul, formed of all
of us.
From many cultures and times, people have intuitively
grasped this transcendent perspective. Martin Buber writes, "When
I encounter a human being, it is no longer He or She, a dot in the world
grid of space
dennis@dennispalumbo.com
