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[2020] 20 Minutes for a Statue to be in Before a Neighbor Calls the Cops to Investigate. (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (11 children)

Some people, for some reason, consider their day wasted if they don't make at least one person they perceive as lower on the totem pole than them suffer. And they consider themselves good guys, helpful guys and pillars of their communities. Which is too fucking sad and infuriating to put into words..

[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I am a doorman for a highrise full of wealthy people. Pretty regularly someone reports a "suspicious" person near the bus stop. Every single time it is just a black person waiting for a bus. No matter how polite and proper they may seem, the wealthy are all scum.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

We should see politeness as offensive like the French did

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I've leaned away from being polite using the magic words and rituals of interaction they teach us in elementary school. And think about how upset it makes older generations when the young say things like "no problem." We do things for others because we want to, and when they show appreciation we let then know we did it out of a shared sense of humanity. And the older folks hate that. They prefer "you're welcome" because

That's what they grew up with as the ritual
The implied dynamic is "you are welcome to my help" which is very different from "I was happy to help" or "it was the least I could do" or "I did it out of a sense of shared humanity." They want to have their entitlement to our help affirmed.

So yeah. Don't be polite for the sake of being polite. Don't be rude for the sake of being rude. Be kind for the sake of a shared human experience. And tell people who don't participate in a revolution of empathy they can fuck right off

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Because it is. Ever have someone say "thank you" when what they really mean is "I'm done with you, get away from me."

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well see here's the kicker. There are words you can find to put into that situation. They don't have to be good words, complicated, or even particularly useful. The most important thing is to speak out. We tend to be too tolerant and unwilling to place ourselves in the center of attention. Saw it during Covid, see it in most situations. We turn our heads and avert our eyes, subverting the expectation that good people should stand for good reasons.

I'll say it plainly: Most of us mean well and speak well. We do nothing though.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 months ago (6 children)

So it is illegal to sleep on a bench?

[–] [email protected] 101 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes. Vagrancy and loitering laws criminalize the homeless people in our community

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago

I am not a native English and I remember having a really hard time understanding what "loitering" actually means. I thought "it cannot mean just standing around. it is a crime after all. how can 'just to exist' be crime?"

Now that I am older I see that it is just an excuse to discriminate.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's essentially illegal to be homeless in the US

[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 months ago (8 children)

So they give people homes to stop them being homeless?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 months ago

Studies show that's the cheapest solution. The problem is that the people holding the reins of power want to torture us, the proletariat. Governance hasn't been about what works since Reagan.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Oh gosh no. They destroy all of their property and put them in jail for 30 days. Then the next time when they try to protect their property they get sent to prison for at least a year for resisting arrest.

And that's if they don't get shot by someone who's not homeless, as at least one state has a law that self defence is a legal defence to shooting a homeless person. As in their homelessness is a legal reason to be shot.

Everyone's got their eyes on minorities but it'll be the homeless that America herds into concentration camps first.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I mean, they're already being forced into ~~slavery~~ prison labor.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Cheaper to arrest them and make them grow slave labor potatos in Idaho

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Funnily, it is demonstrably not cheaper. Study after study shows its not cheaper. But its not about what costs the state the least, its about making sure wealth protects you from suffering. If wealth protects you from suffering, it justifies being wealthy so that you can avoid suffering. The result is that the wealthy torture the poor for the sake of torturing the poor. Its supremely fucked up and saying they do it to be cheap lessens exactly how fucked up it is.

Like. I want to be clear. I'm not replying with all this to be contrarian to your stance. I'm saying it because more people need to see it and be aware of it. Most of the world lives in a society that's been built through torture. We've learned that torture isn't required for economies to work and for workers to produce what everyone needs to thrive, but the absolute wealthiest people need to maintain the torture otherwise they can't justify their existence stemming from this torture. It would almost be better if they justified it through sport. But its not even that. They have to keep torturing because if the torture they perform now isn't justified, it means the torture of the past wasn't justified

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Funnily, it is demonstrably not cheaper. Study after study shows its not cheaper. But its not about what costs the state the least, its about making sure wealth protects you from suffering.

Same with healthcare. We pay, what, 4x more for our healthcare system than the next highest country that has universal healthcare? It doesn't matter. Our system continues to funnel the money upward and punish the poor as well as further entrench them in poverty. America is lovely.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

We should mutiny

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

But its not about what costs the state the least, its about making sure wealth protects you from suffering

Well, it's also about disciplining the labor force. Poverty must be unbearable so that people are kept desperate for work.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But its not about what costs the state the least, its about making sure wealth protects you from suffering.

Yep. It's specifically to ensure the fear of homelessness keeps profitable wage workers as profitable as possible.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago

It really shouldn't be, but in some places, yeah.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago (3 children)

20ish years ago I got roused and told to move along by a cop for sleeping on a bench at a rest area off I95 in the middle of the day. I'd been up all night and stopped because I didn't feel safe driving anymore. That didn't matter to him/the law so I got back on the road.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I had something similar happen in Louisville. I pulled off the road because I was legitimately dangerous to myself and others. Cop told me I had to move on

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

For an example of how it should go: I was a young buck in the earlier 2000's driving after work going across several states. Got way to tired and pulled over. Few hours later I was woken up by a state trooper questioning me (probably the most disoriented I've ever felt waking up without a sedative in my system). Explained my situation and he gave me a business location a mile up the road where it would be safer for me to park and sleep because the police monitored the building at night and he would let them know I was there. For reference, I was not a minority and had a decent car at the time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

I was waiting for a bus and was practicing juggling to pass the time. I was told I couldn't do that by a security guard who thought I was busking. So I put up a sign that said "I'm not busking" and he was quite huffy and stood around giving me stink eye.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

Not necessarily, but thanks to SCOTUS, cities can make it illegal all they want now.

But also, there’s this:

§ 559.45 Behavior in Parks

Sleeping or protracted lounging on the seats or benches, or loud, boisterous, threatening or abusive, insulting or indecent language, or disorderly conduct or behavior, or any act tending to a breach of the public peace is strictly prohibited. Source

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

If the police want to give you trouble, yes.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Here's what to do if you see someone sleeping on a bench or in a park: mind your fucken business, unless some is dying or being actively hurt mind your fucken business

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

If you think you saw someone sleeping somewhere illegally, no you didn't.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Damnit Jesus go back to heaven already you know it's illegal to sleep here" Police probably

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Before or after beating him?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago (3 children)

depends on whether or not it was the white jesus, I suppose

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

He'll just turn the other cheek, but he can also respawn, so I think eventually he'll wear you down.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hispanic jesus would have definitely taken a beating.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Korean Jesus would've thrown the beating.

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For context, Bay Village is one of the wealthiest and whitest Cleveland suburbs.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And probably "Christian". As in those that say their Christian but don't exhibit Christianity's ideals.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The key tradition colonizers spread to the new world was calling yourself a Christian before doing some heinous, very-unchristian shit.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Would you like some free, slightly used blankets?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Who the fuck calls the police about someone sleeping on a bench? That person must be really rotten inside.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

How much you want to bet they tithe regularly to their local church?

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It does kind of look like they might be dead. Maybe they were concerned about their welfare? I'm just too much of an optimist about people I guess.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago

Usually it's the 'no poverty in front of my kids' type of person that use their kids to justify being inhumane

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Punching down, American as apple pie

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

Pick up that can, Messiah.

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