When the temperature dips below zero it’s a sure bet that some eager little TV reporter will rush out to stick a microphone in the face of someone who normally “camps out.” Those are individuals that out of choice have decided they would rather take their chances sleeping under a bridge than dealing with members of a society that often has been disingenuous, despicable and downright mean to them.
It’s all too easy to dismiss those who eschew normal creature comforts (such as keeping warm on a winter night) by making assumptions in regards to their mental state. Certainly the mentally challenged, the addicted and the just plain ol’ disgusted are among the population that would rather stay outside of the mainstream and anything it has to offer, even in the dead of winter — and in many cases, they might be saving lives of others than their own.
We are all too familiar with someone going “postal,” running into a workplace and spraying the populace with bullets. Of course, we dismiss such individuals as simply crazy, wingnuts whose lives have gone awry, people who for whatever reason are listening to the dangerous voices inside their own heads. But are they always crazy?
For a thankfully brief period in the late ’60s, I was hearing those voices. But what they were telling me was in no way “crazy.” I was being bombarded by messages of justice and equality.
For the previous nine years, I had dedicated my work life to becoming an outstanding employee of a large public utility. However, in spite of the fact I was training men under me to promote over me, and was told I was far and away the best candidate, I couldn’t be promoted, simply because of the color of my skin. No shit! I was told exactly that.
This was in 1968 and the ill-treatment drove me to the edge of going postal. And I don’t doubt that some of the people you see pushing a grocery cart down the street have had somewhat similar experiences in life.
When I dropped out of society and became a counterfeiter, it was to save some white folks’ lives. As God is my witness, if He had not sent an angel down to pull me back off the ledge there would have been at least a dozen employees of the Illuminating Company lying dead at 146th and Caine Avenue back in ’69.
My point is, none of us enter this world wishing to end up pushing a shopping cart around the city. Sometimes shit happens, and “there but for the grace of God go you or I.” Maybe they are simply saving the lives of their tormentors by living life down there on the killing floor. Who knows?
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.