The rain disintegrated into my skin a young dievious boy had just pulled the last straw what else could go wrong? Before I could catch my breath my life had just shattered before my eyes in one unpleasant phone call with my mom. My house had been found as unliviable and we had to leave everything and vaciate the primicise and never return again or me and my siblings would never see my parents again. I just wanted to cry slam my head against the wall and give up but I was at work Joe Hamilton Elementary After School Program and I couldn’t let my students see me crumble.
I remember saying in my head please wake me up from this awful dream this can’t be real ccan I ever have a perfect life with no worrries. Is the dream of the perfect life real can ever be achieved or is it the struggles of people in poverty that help influence the upper classes perfect life? People are blind to the injustices that are all around them such as race and the way they treat others that live differently from their ideals. Yes their may be an inbetween but majority of people I have encountered believe one thing only that homless people put themselves in that perdicument and they’ve choosen that way of life.
First and foremost what is the dream? According to Between the World and Me by Taneisha Coates the dream is perfect homes, cookouts, cub scouts, and smells like Peppermint and tastes like strawberry shortcake (11). The dream is being able to wake up in the morning with a roufe over your head, food in the refrigerate and knowing that your going to be safe and sound no matter what (Bonnie Fulton, Nov2016).
Sadly this dream will never be achieved because it is unrealistic our world is full of corruption racism turning our backs on people and things that our different from our own ideals. For example in new York there is a new initative going on called Peak a boo we see you that was created by the New York Police Department and “concerned citizens of New York where they go out and take pictures of the homeless with out there consent and broadcast them through various sites and humiliate them by saying various things like disgusting bed and breakfast in hopes of making the city great again( the guardian.com) This seriously affends me because these police are suppoused to be looking out for us protecting us against harm but there doing the opposite here there Promoting a cause that we all know well that is wrong segregation. Now how are we suppoused to live the perfect dream when we are stuck in the past first it was slavery now countless riots black lives matters Baltimore riots and demorilizing the homeless whats next.
Next how do we build the dream? Although the dream may be unrealistic there are many components that must be taken into consideration in order to mimic the dream such as, the idea of hardwork, entitlement and putting yourself first before other. According to Professor Robert Prasch at middle bury college who specializes in economics he states that America is a place where if you work hard you will succeed… because you’re an expectional individual(alternet.org). I believe this assumption to be false because my mother worked her life away and as soon as we became homeless she was forced to give her livelihood up in order for me and my family to receive assiantance.
If Americas such a great place where hardwork will bring sucess then why did my mom have to give up her job to receive help why kind of person or government allows someone to have to give there job up to receive help. What happened to getting people out of homelessness segregation and making them decent citzens and able bodies in the work force or in society isn’t that a states goal? Another factor is entitlement a family took me and my family in for several months they were kind and helped us out however when we got our own places there came times when we went head to head on certain things. For example I chose to stay in contact with a person they didn’t approve of and I remember them approaching me and my mom separately saying ” I can take it awy as quick as I gave it to you don’t test me(Mason, Aug 2015 ).” In that moment it was like taking me back to being in the woods where
I feared for my life and body yes people do help you in times of need but I feel it unneccesary to use the I helped you phrase when you disagree with their choices. It’s like Coates states in Between the world and me…”Theses officals had my body, they could do whatever they pleased with my body…[in this my complain would mean nothing] (76).” The last factor is putting yourself first before others. For instance an Associate dean in Academic affairs of at Denver University’s Josef Korbel school of International Studeis by the name of David Levine claims that there are two reasons why people do what they do with the homeless.
First if a person gives to the homelss it is because they believe they are responsible for the homeless person’s shame and they create this idea of responsibility in an attempt to repair their own damage. Second if a person bashes the homeless it means there attempting to avoid there own shame so they come up with things like get a job you loser and so forth(ALTERNET.org/Poverty/Psychology).
Is the dream achieveable no it will not be achieveable unless we as individuals own up to world we live and realize its not perfect and try to change through be opening to others stories and being more accepting of others ideals. I challenge each and everyone of you both old and young to change one thing in your life wethers its forming prejudices about the homeless or someone of another skin color stop it. If we don’t learn from our own hidden biases or mistakes we as a nation will never enjoy a perfect idealistic life. Please I encourage you to really sit down and face your prejudices head on and decide if there really worth holding on to.
