Who’s afraid of the big, bad homeless man?

Near where I live is a small urban park bisected by a fast road. On one side is a strip of wasteland where in the spring and summer there are often down-and-outs living, sometimes for weeks at a time. Some of them just sit in the open and some have tents. When I have to walk past them I feel my stomach muscles tighten. I try to keep as far away as possible. That’s what I’ve always felt like and my family has always been wary of the homeless – but is it an emotional reaction or a rational one? That is, is it a prejudice driven by fear of people from different backgrounds, like racism or classism?

It is essentially a fear of the unknown, and in our minds the unknown is often frightening or grim. More specifically, racism and classism start as fears of people who are different from us in some way and that we don’t understand. For instance, think of how mentally ill people are regarded in some developing countries as being possessed by evil spirits and treated appallingly.

So, looking back, I now think that writing You Have No Power Over Me (about a homeless man and child runaway) [http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005VF6D3M/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B005VF6D3M&linkCode=as2&tag=boolifandotho-21&linkId=JIC6WLSHTWJEW33D] was both an attempt by my subconscious to exorcise my personal fear of the homeless and an expression of empathy for street children. (Quite a contradiction, but this article contains further contradictions!)

However, there is a problem with just saying we shouldn’t feel like this and should try to overcome it. We cannot have understanding and acceptance of people from different cultures and social backgrounds without that fear because fear is, I believe, the other side of the coin to acceptance. In other words, we can’t begin to get on with foreigners, homeless people, people from other social backgrounds and disabled people without the risk of prejudice.

It’s an uncomfortable paradox, but life is full of uneasy truths and once we accept it, we can begin to live together on this planet we all have to share. After all, we are all different but we are all human.