We see them every day. When they knock on our door to ask for food, at traffic lights, asking for coins, sweets, cigarettes, anything. Or washing the windshields of cars even when people don’t want them to or have nothing to give in return for their service. We also see them wandering the streets, nowhere to go; we speed by them, blurred huddles in carton shelters, inside the tunnels or under the viaducts; we cross with them and we hear them screaming inanities or else, we go around them in the morning, when they are lying on the sidewalks in fetal position, sleeping in the rain. They may be alone or in a group, be men or women, young or old. And, many times, with children around, always many children.
They are the outcasts.
The reaction of people is one of discomfort or disgust. Outcasts are scary. It doesn’t occur to anybody that they are the ones who are scared of us. Very scared. Life has only taught them to be beaten, to lose, to be nobodies, to live without self-esteem. It is certain that they see the discomfort in the eyes and in the gestures of people. It is clear that they feel the contempt and they surely feel the disgust. But it is possible to see in them, sometimes, and if we pay attention, a physical likeness to many people we know personally or to people who are in the media. One can be the spit image of Jim Morrison, another one, with a little effort of imagination, remind one of a known singer, a famous painter, a prominent executive or a socialite.
The reaction of people is one of discomfort or disgust. Outcasts are scary. It doesn’t occur to anybody that they are the ones who are scared of us. Very scared. Life has only taught them to be beaten, to lose, to be nobodies, to live without self-esteem. It is certain that they see the discomfort in the eyes and in the gestures of people. It is clear that they feel the contempt and they surely feel the disgust. But it is possible to see in them, sometimes, and if we pay attention, a physical likeness to many people we know personally or to people who are in the media. One can be the spit image of Jim Morrison, another one, with a little effort of imagination, remind one of a known singer, a famous painter, a prominent executive or a socialite.
Suppose we were taken out of the places where we are usual, of where we make sense, wouldn’t we become strangers too? And if we found ourselves, all of a sudden, in the outskirts of a foreign city, for instance, with a different uniform, surrounded by the sounds of another language, dialect or slang being spoken around us; in different circumstances of life where we aren’t known, where our secret signs aren’t reflected by the walls, by looks of recognition? And if we didn’t display on our bodies the thousand ephemeral details that give us self-confidence and identity, history and respect? Wouldn’t we be seen also with suspicion, disgust and fear? And wouldn’t we be frightened for being outcasts? Why is it then, that when we look at them we don’t ask ourselves: who did this? I suspect it is because we know the answer.
