Viewpoint Shopping for justice in Los Angeles
By JEFF DIETRICH
The security guards at the
prestigious Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles are as obsequious to wealthy
guests as they are harsh to homeless people who transgress the invisible border
separating affluent from impoverished -- especially if that person happens to
be pushing a shopping cart.
So when Martha from the Los Angeles Catholic Worker House
recognized Gerald, one of our friends from the soup kitchen, being detained by
the Biltmore security people, she went to investigate. They told me that
if I didnt take my shopping cart away from here, they would give me a
ticket. But I showed them the statement on the cart and they went to call their
boss. The guards returned and said, Sorry to bother you, sir. Thank
you for educating us. You can go now.
Catholic Worker shopping carts have been breaking barriers and
empowering homeless people ever since July 14 when we handed out the first 100
free, street-legal shopping carts to the poor people of Skid Row.
It turns out that L.A. Police Captain Richard Bonneau was
prophetic when he said of our carts, I suspect we will be powerless to
stop them. No one has stopped them -- not the police, not the Sanitation
Department, not the Mayors Office, not the Biltmore security guards. We
have secured a modest victory for homeless street people who are no longer
forced to spend up to 60 days in jail for illegally possessing a shopping cart.
The usual accusation is that the cart was stolen from a grocery store or other
place of business.
Critics say were being unfair to businesses and property
owners, both of whom lose money if street people start pushing carts in their
area. It seems that public discourse on poverty and homelessness in America
always comes down to issues of fairness. It is unfair to allow panhandling
because it drives away shoppers. It is unfair to allow poor people to
congregate in public spaces because it drives away the public. Americans pride
themselves on the virtue of fairness. So it would no doubt come as a shock to
learn that fairness does not get even honorable mention in the scriptures to
which most Americans give allegiance.
The God of Exodus, which is to say the God of the Bible, is not
concerned about property values or business climate or the tourist trade. The
Exodus story, the paradigmatic story of scripture, is in fact a complete
inversion of the values to which most Americans adhere. The God of Exodus is
concerned not with fairness but with justice; not with business climate but
with liberation; not with property values but with human values.
When it comes to the Old Testament, Americans either refuse to
read it because it is violent, irrational and politically incorrect, or they
read it as if Americans themselves were the chosen people, the elect of God.
But Exodus is not about election, its about liberation. The Hebrew people
were chosen not because of their piety and righteousness but
because of their poverty and suffering. And while it is indeed politically
incorrect from the perspective of the Egyptian rulers, it is salvific from the
perspective of the oppressed Hebrew slaves.
Thus a more authentic reading would place relatively wealthy and
powerful First World people like ourselves in the role of Egyptian slave
owners. In the story, God is not fair or rational to the Egyptian people. He
does not offer to sit down and discuss monetary compensation with the Egyptian
slave owners for the loss of their property. He refuses to acknowledge that
there might have been some slight truth in the Egyptian accusations that the
Hebrew people were lazy, unproductive, sexually overactive and thus a drain on
the economy.
The God of Exodus is not fair or reasonable. He not only takes
slaves from the Egyptians, he takes their jewels, their property and their
animals as well. After he afflicts their land with boils, flies and frogs, he
kills their firstborn children and slaughters their army. The God of Exodus is
sensitive only to the cries of the poor Hebrews.
Exodus is not about rational negotiations. It is not even about
leveling the playing field so that everyone gets an equal chance. It is about
changing the rules entirely. The last will be first and the first will be last
was not a concept invented by Jesus Christ; he got it directly from the God of
Exodus.
If we are to find salvation as rich and powerful First World
people, we should consider the positive Egyptian role models in the Exodus
story. The Egyptian midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, committed civil disobedience
by refusing to kill the Hebrew boy babies; the Egyptian princess defied her
father, the pharaoh, by rescuing the baby Moses; Moses himself rejected his
life of comfort and privilege as a member of the Egyptian elite in
Pharaohs palace to stand with the slaves and the outcasts.
All risked their social status and their careers, rejected
privilege and disobeyed the law of the land for the sake of slaves and outcasts
-- the most despised members of the society.
Standing on the side of slaves and outcasts will never secure for
us community service awards, public adulation or praise from the local Rotary
Club, and it just might get us in trouble.
The shopping cart issue has put us on the side of poor people like
no other issue ever before. We hope they are a momentary vision of that
non-Egyptian kingdom to come in which the God of Exodus hears the cry of the
poor and makes sure that the first will be last and the last will be first.
Biltmore security guards apologizing to homeless people are just a
tentative first step in that direction.
Jeff Dietrich is a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker
community.
National Catholic Reporter, October 30,
1998
|