Choosers can be Beggers
The downturn in the economy has started many a wonderings aflutter, and I suppose this is just another one of those.
Recently I’ve become more sensitive to requests for my money on the street. I was struck by how similarly I reacted to a homeless person’s request as to a boyscout’s pestering outside of a local supermarket [note: I gave to the homeless person, but not to the boyscout — but I feel similarly guilty!]. While I haven’t determined my moral stance on giving (although I’m informed by my zadie’s prescient plea to remember those less fortunate and to look past my own hardship, especially when times are bleakest), I do think that school fundraisers are treading dangerous grounds by setting the students out to smile their cutest smiles and hold out their hands in need.
I understand that schools are woefully underfunded, but it broke my heart to walk past kids who are just trying to curry favor in the adults’ eyes — and favor translates into handouts or the sale of overpriced goods.
As the reprecussions of the economic crisis wind their way into our daily lives more and more, I wonder how to understand this relationship between giver and begger and how to understand the ways that our society frames that dynamic.
The Shanty Kingdom 