fabulouslyghetto
Kween of Hot Topics
it started out as feeding the homeless, as i immersed myself in that "world" i quickly noticed a lot of homeless people are sex offenders. in the typical counterintuitive nature of americana, sex offenders aren't allowed to rent apartments or homes, which creates a disastrous "honor system" where cops HOPE the offenders will stay in one spot cuz, ya know, too busy kicking black men in the face over traffic violations to be doing ACTUAL community work.
two moments in particular caught my attention-- hanging out at the park in the afternoon when an offender strolled up and yall know my loud mouth, i confronted him and this part is very fucking silly.... so my friends and I asked the man to identify himself, he gave a nickname, i said his government name (which I knew because some of the friends i made in this work are criminals so checking the arrest records is a daily part of my routine, which coupled with my photographic memory = trouble for offenders) and he fled like the hounds of hell were on his trail. this bastard actually flagged down a police officer and accused us of "posing as cops" so the cop interrogated us, but not the sex offender walking through a park where dozens of children play every day.
the second incident was at another park where i spotted another offender whose name/face i remembered. i was on my way somewhere so i didn't get to investigate but i realized that we have a nation full of offenders and nobody tracking them. which is understandable cuz in america protecting kids from abuse means begging disney to remove gay cartoon characters. to each his own i guess.
anyway that's the gist of how community work turned into a separate mission to fix this broken system. i cannot fathom how we expect to protect anyone, child or adult,from offenders when we don't even know where they are and there aren't enough me's being hyper-vigilant about it.
in conclusion
if you don't have any other incentive to get involved with homelessness locally or nationally, do it for all of our safety. And please don't take this as a dogwhistle to start treating all homeless people like predators because for everyone predator out there there's people who are only on the streets due to mental illness, lack of resources, no family to support them et cetera.
two moments in particular caught my attention-- hanging out at the park in the afternoon when an offender strolled up and yall know my loud mouth, i confronted him and this part is very fucking silly.... so my friends and I asked the man to identify himself, he gave a nickname, i said his government name (which I knew because some of the friends i made in this work are criminals so checking the arrest records is a daily part of my routine, which coupled with my photographic memory = trouble for offenders) and he fled like the hounds of hell were on his trail. this bastard actually flagged down a police officer and accused us of "posing as cops" so the cop interrogated us, but not the sex offender walking through a park where dozens of children play every day.
the second incident was at another park where i spotted another offender whose name/face i remembered. i was on my way somewhere so i didn't get to investigate but i realized that we have a nation full of offenders and nobody tracking them. which is understandable cuz in america protecting kids from abuse means begging disney to remove gay cartoon characters. to each his own i guess.
anyway that's the gist of how community work turned into a separate mission to fix this broken system. i cannot fathom how we expect to protect anyone, child or adult,from offenders when we don't even know where they are and there aren't enough me's being hyper-vigilant about it.
in conclusion
if you don't have any other incentive to get involved with homelessness locally or nationally, do it for all of our safety. And please don't take this as a dogwhistle to start treating all homeless people like predators because for everyone predator out there there's people who are only on the streets due to mental illness, lack of resources, no family to support them et cetera.
