In the last week, my piece on #FitchTheHomeless has gotten a lot of attention. It inspired the second-most single-day hits that my blog has seen, and it was republished at The Good Men Project and on the Huffington Post. With that kind of traffic, though, comes a lot of criticism. Lots of people said things like, “So what you’re saying is that we should just never attempt to serve other people? We should just sit on our asses?”
Others claimed that the ends justify the means, saying that it doesn’t matter if homeless people are being dehumanized because they’re being given something they need: clothes.
But absent from those criticisms is an understanding of the very voices that are inherently left out of most any conversation that takes place online: people experiencing homelessness.
In her brilliant response to #FitchTheHomeless published at Relevant Magazine, Rachel Karman, a social worker who works daily with the people who live in Skid Row, decided to do something that the creator of #FitchTheHomeless never thought to do: Talk to the people the campaign purports to help!
I cannot encourage you enough to read her entire article, but in case you don’t do so, at least read this excerpt:
And acknowledging how emotionally invested I am in this situation, I thought it might be best for me and for us all to hear and learn from the people whose opinion on this really matters. I decided to show some of the people I work with the video and write down—unfiltered—what was said. Here’s what I heard:
“Wow, that CEO guy is a bad dude.”
“Why the h*** would he pass out clothes to us that he said date rapists wear?”
“I’ve seen my nephew wear that brand of clothing and he’s not a date rapist.”
“It doesn’t look like he is explaining what he is doing to anyone he is giving clothes to. That’s not right.”
“Why isn’t he talking to people when he gives them the clothes? I hate it when people who think they are do-gooders act like that.”
“Why did he just give that large man those tiny pants? I thought he just said they don’t make those sizes? That doesn’t seem very helpful at all.”
“He’s not even asking if he can film them, does he think this is a zoo?”
“Why would we want our ‘own brand of clothing?’ Especially clothing he said ‘douche bags’ wear.”
“I’m not interested in being this guys billboard or social cause, unless it’s to get people homes.”
“We may be homeless, but that doesn’t mean we want to wear ‘douchey’ clothes to prove a point—what purpose would that serve, to dehumanize us even more than we already have been?”
“If someone walked up to me to take a picture of me to put on the Internet, I would be really pissed off.”
But the comment that I think sums up everything that needs to be said, was made by a woman who sat quietly through the whole video, before simply stating, “Well, that sort of hurt my feelings.”
So before we go justifying our paternalistic “charity,” let’s at least take some time to listen to those who are being affected by campaigns like #FitchTheHomeless.
And for the opportunity to do so in this case, I am endlessly thankful to the powerful voices from Skid Row who spoke up and to Rachel Karman for sharing them.
The collective outrage has produced some fantastic responses. My favorite comes from Amy Taylor who proclaims,
“I am proud to say that I may be a not-so-cool kid and the extra pounds I carry may not be a thing of beauty, but I am nothing like you or your brand — and that, Mr. Jeffries, is a beautiful thing.”
But inevitably, as is par for the course on the interwebs, there are going to be some responses that are less than fantastic, that despite good intentions, actually end up furthering oppression rather than combating it.
Enter the #FitchTheHomeless campaign.
I’ve seen a number of people posting this on Facebook and Twitter with captions like, “Awesome!” and “Perfect.” and “Brilliant!!”
But when a friend posted it to my timeline asking for my thoughts, I immediately was left with a pretty terrible taste in my mouth.
This “campaign” is neither “Awesome!” nor “Perfect.” or “Brilliant!” And here’s why:
While I am sure the creator had good intentions (“I can humiliate Abercrombie & Fitch while helping people in need!!!“), what it ends up doing is using people experiencing homelessness as pawns to make a political statement.
And that’s really not okay.
Setting aside the immature digs at the physical appearance of Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries, the essential premise of the video seems to be:
Abercrombie & Fitch wants only “attractive” people to wear their clothes, so let’s rebrand them by putting the ickiest people in their clothes that we possibly can, and who’s ickier than homeless people!?!?
So the White man who created the video puts on his White Savior cape, buys up a bunch of second-hand Abercrombie merch, and heads to a community this is, in every respect, not his space to invade: Skid Row.
Skid Row and Gentrification
The narrator/creator is right in asserting that Skid Row has “one of the largest concentrations of homeless people” in the U.S., a reality that is a direct result of policies by local authorities that attempted to concentrate the city’s entire homeless population into one area with few resources and services.
But what he ignores is that he’s not the only (seemingly) wealth-privileged White dude going into Skid Row. It is the site of some pretty intense gentrification. And while the influx of capital will indeed mean some new services for the area’s transient and homeless population, it will also undoubtedly mean that many homeless people are scattered to other parts of the city without much support.
So let’s be clear: when the narrator says, “at first, people were reluctant to accept the clothing” (before making a joke that all people who wear Abercrombie & Fitch are “narcissistic date rapists” – hilarious!), it likely has nothing to do with his little crusade.
It’s much more likely rooted in a healthy distrust of White Saviors who have long come to the neighborhood to do feel-good charity or in a resentment of the White money that is transforming Skid Row.
Charity vs Justice
And then there’s our White Savior friend’s statement of, “It was time to do some charity.”
#FitchTheHomeless
An incredible friend, ally, and social justice activist named Cheryl Clark offers trainings for social service non-profits aimed at helping them understand exactly why charity is not what they should be striving for. In short, she helps these social service agencies recognize that charity stems from a place of paternalism – “I know what you need, so I am going to give it to you whether or not you actually need it.”
As an alternative, she offers a model that she calls “neighboring,” whereby the non-profit empowers community leaders from the population being “served” to dictate the direction, scope, and nature of service while engaging non-profit staff and volunteers in building relationships and investing themselves in the community.
Her point is that charity is, despite popular “wisdom,” not in fact a good thing. It is paternalism based in privilege, and it tends to further oppression rather than helping create justice.
So, Mr. #FitchTheHomeless, what the folks in Skid Row need is not your charity. In fact, neither you or I could ever say what they need. Only the folks in Skid Row can make that determination.
So PLEASE do not encourage well-meaning folks of race and class privilege to charge into homeless peoples’ spaces with their Abercrombie & Fitch gear. If you want to donate some clothes, at least do so through accountable organizations that have done the work to build accountable relationships among people experiencing homelessness.
Dehumanization of People Experiencing Homelessness
But what really bothers me about the video, though, is not the paternalism or the blatant expressions of race and class privilege described above.
What bothers me is the way that this #FitchTheHomeless campaign contributes to dehumanization of people who are experiencing homelessness.
If you notice, nowhere in the video do we hear the stories or voices of the people the narrator claims to serve. In fact, we see quite the opposite: quickly changing images of people who seem to fit common stereotypes of what homelessness looks like.
And aside from not really helping anyone, the creator of the #FitchTheHomeless campaign uses people experiencing homelessness as tools, pawns in his socio-political campaign against a wealthy corporation that’s run by an asshole.
And when people are reduced to tools for your campaign, there’s a word for that: dehumanization.
A few companies recently have been criticized for hiring homeless people to carry devices that emit a wireless internet signal. In the words of this ABC news report, stated without irony, “The company turned homeless people on the streets of Austin into wireless hotspots.”
Did you catch that? The folks who were hired were transformed from being homeless PEOPLE to being objects – devices for public consumption.
And this #FitchTheHomeless campaign is not really any different. It communicates two things:
Homeless people are tools that we can use for our funny viral campaign against a corporation AND
Homeless people are the opposite of “attractive” and “cool.” They are the, in fact, the single most dehumanized and othered population in the United States, so they are perfect for making our political point.
And this happens within the context that most people do not even cognitively recognize those who are experiencing homelessness as human beings. That is not hyperbole. Collaborative research from Duke and Princeton found that when presented with images of “homeless people,” the Medial Prefrontal Cortex – the section of the brain that lights up when we recognize other human beings – does not light up.
Yup – Your brain and mine are not even recognizing “homeless people” as people!!!
And this dehumanizing campaign DOES. NOT. HELP.
So, Mr. #FitchTheHomeless, Stop.
And to the rest of my readers out there, if you’re considering participating in this little game, Don’t.
This is a strange position to be in! Though I am writing a lot of new content lately, I am now in my third week of not having to post something new to my blog directly! As a contributing writer to Everyday Feminism, I am expected to write two articles per month for the site. Well, lately my articles had been backlogged at the site, and now they are all getting published. I am still writing new content for CFW, but I will keep it in the wings until there is a week when I am not being published elsewhere.
In the mean time, enjoy this week’s post from Everyday Feminism.
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The Importance of Listening as a Privileged Person Fighting for Justice
In my work with high school students, I am regularly asked, “What can I do? I know that injustice exists, but I feel so powerless. I want to help!”
More often than not, the students asking the question is doing so from a place of privilege: a straight student who wants to be a better LGBTQ ally, a white student who wants to be more anti-racist, an able-bodied person who wants to better support his differently-abled brother.
It’s no surprise to me that folks of privilege are the ones struggling to figure out how to act for justice. More often than not, those who are denied access, voice, privilege, and justice in dominant culture know exactly what they need to do to act for justice.
Those of us with identity privilege, though, can simply coast, never considering how our unchecked privileges contribute to a system of oppression.
To that point, my answer to their question is always the same: “Listen.”
Listening Is the Root of Justice
There are lots of steps that someone can take to become a better ally, but surely there is no more important step than listening.
I was raised in a culture where I benefit from a great many privileges. I am cis-male, white, straight, English-speaking, and able-bodied, and I come from a family of wealth privilege. In the words of Louis CK, “How many advantages can one person have!?”
With those unearned advantages comes a little voice that tells me that I am always right, that I am above reproach, that I have power and deserve power.
And not only does this little voice tell me that I am always right, but it tells me that there is no need to listen to the voices of those who are different from me.
“What could they possibly teach me?”
And therein lies the arrogant lack of perspective that can come with any form of identity privilege.
After all, when a person lives in a vacuum of privileged voices and perspectives, how brilliant can said person be?
Men who refuse to listen to women, cis folk who ignore trans* voices, white people who ignore people of color… In every case, we are denying ourselves the knowledge of powerful perspectives.
And because privilege conceals itself from those who have it, those of us who benefit from identity privilege are often unaware of the perspectives we deny, silence, and stifle with our voice.
As such, I’ve done a lot of silencing in my life, but most of it wasn’t active. I haven’t simply talked over someone or shouted someone down.
Instead, I’ve resorted to one of my most powerful weapons as a person of privilege: my refusal to listen.
For example, white people like myself are taught that we shouldn’t listen to voices of color. After all, if we did, we wouldn’t need study after study to prove that racism is real and that we don’t live in a “post-racial” society.
We would simply be able to hear it in the stories and voices of those folks of color that must live in our racist society every single day.
A few weeks ago, I had the incredible pleasure of participating in a panel discussion on The Harlem Shake and the meme that has since run its course. I was invited to speak after publishing a piece called “Racism, Appropriation, and the Harlem Shake.” The panel inspired me to write “Shaking Off the ‘Harlem Shake’ Meme: Tools for Resisting Cultural Appropriation,” but the most powerful perspectives on that panel were not mine, so I wanted to make sure my readers had a chance to learn from the incredible knowledge dropped at that event.
First up: Dr. Don C. Sawyer III, Professor at Quinnipiac University and The Harlem Son
“It’s just a dance to you because you don’t go into these places where the students are dealing with underserved schools, lack of music in schools, dealing with gun violence, dealing with the NYPD or the NYPD gang if you want to call them that, so you’re not there dealing with all of this, so that’s why this is not just a dance.”
Once the video of the event is out, I will make sure I publish it here on the blog.
As others in the panel responded to oft-asked questions like, “What’s the big deal? It’s just dancing!” and “What is this cultural appropriation thing anyway?”, I spoke to a question that I’ve been answering a lot since I published “Racism, Appropriation, and The Harlem Shake: “What am I supposed to do to resist/stop cultural appropriation?”
To be clear, every single time that I’ve been asked this question, it’s come from a White person, and most often it came from a place of defensiveness. While many folks of Color know exactly what they need to do to hold onto their cultures and preserve them in spite of White appropriation, we as White folks (even the most well-meaning among us) are usually clueless about how we can resist this subtle form of racism.
Because I’ve been getting the question quite often, I figure it would be easier to respond here publicly. That said, I am by no means an expert, so if you have ideas or suggestions for people to resist racist cultural appropriation, please share them in the comments.
How People of Racial Privilege can Resist Cultural Appropriation
1. Listen to Varied Voices and Perspectives of Color
Cultural appropriation is, at its root, more often a product of ignorance than of malice, but that doesn’t make it any less harmful in its impact. If people of privilege like myself did a better job of listening to and educating ourselves about the varied perspectives of people of Color, we would be MUCH less likely to act in ways that further appropriate cultural expressions from their roots and locus of control in communities of Color.
HOWEVER, this does not mean we should be going up to people of Color and saying, “Please teach me! I don’t want to be a racist any more!” Frankly, folks of Color are tired of having to educate us about history, oppression, privilege, and justice.
There are lots of ways for us to listen. As noted by Mychal Denzel Smith in his brilliant article “White People Need to Give Up Racism,” “White people have to diversify their media consumption.” We need to read, listen to, watch, and reflect on the voices of a variety of people of Color in our media consumption. If you want some suggestions of where to start, Smith offers some good ideas in his article.
And when we DO find ourselves in a position to listen to people of Color speak their truths, we need to shut up, listen, and stop thinking of ways that we can simply respond or push back.
In the case of the Harlem Shake meme, if more of the White folks who helped to launch this meme were aware of the life-saving force that hip hop music and dance has been in Harlem and of the history of the dance itself and of the ways that the culture of folks of Color is regularly stolen and repackaged by White folks, I like to think that most of them would have been less likely to participate.
