Last year someone gave me a pair of Sennheiser headphones—dead ass gave them to me. I was ballin’. I got to be a homeless person with an iPhone 12 and a pair of Sennheisers. And then my idiot friend set off a series of unfortunate events that resulted in the loss of my headphones, along with everything else I owned at the time.
So last month when this very sweet devout Christian saw a comment of mine about being a homeless drug addict, and sent me $300. I bought a new pair of Sennheisers on Mercari. I’m pretty sure it was the same model even.
I finally got around to checking my mail and—the headphones are fucked off. They won’t pair or fucking anything.
I had to fight the screaming urge to slam them on the ground.
You should run a financial literacy class for unhoused people
They can all pull up in their Cadillacs wearing Gucci and learn to buy housing instead of avocado toast
My mind is blown just thinking about it right now, I wonder why homelessness is even a problem?
It must be because we just don’t have enough people to talk down to them
Strawman all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that begging for handouts every few days and then turning around and spending the money on frivolous non-essential purchases when you can’t even reliably feed yourself is fucking stupid. (Im not knocking comrades helping each other out or needing help, to be cleear) I’m no friend of capitalism, but there’s a huge space between sucking off capitalism with brain dead takes like in your strawman argument and pointing out that this may not have been the wisest choice under the circumstances for OP.
Also…ironic you use unhoused people wearing brands they can’t afford in your example, when that’s the exact type of thing I’m talking about.
What is there to possibly be gained by bringing the same kind of hounding unhoused people receive about how they spend their money found throughout capitalist society into our space? You think they don’t hear that enough already?
The whole point of our mutual aid community is that you can ask for money without means testing or people bothering you about how exactly you spent it. Also, idk if you actually read their post, but the headphones money didn’t even come from here.
It’s not a strawman, you literally sound like one of those people when you’re talking about people spending the tiny amount of money (a drop in a bucket compared to what people actually need, continuously, to survive) they get from “handouts” on “frivolous non-essential purchases” (wildly loaded words) and calling them “fucking stupid”
It’s one thing to be giving advice (although unsolicited advice is often annoying) but what is it about what you’re saying that is different from the average liberal just talking down to unhoused people about how they think they’re spending money wrong?
You came into this calling them “fucking idiotic” so fuck you
Also you can’t be racist to white people
can’t be racist to white people
Lol
Re: your other points, I see where your coming from. While I agree with you that kicking someone when they’re down does nothing to help them out in any way, I am of the belief that there is a distinction between kicking someone when they’re down and speaking truth to them, even if that truth is hard to hear. To clarify my position: I do not intend to shame anyone for needing help and assistance, and I love that communities such as mutualaid exist (though I hate that we have need for them as their existence and need underscores failures of the capitalist system itself), but I don’t think it rude or insulting to point out reality. I’ve been where OP is in the past so I speak from experience. I insist that spending resources one does not have on higher end purchases than needed to meet the immediate need (whether that be food, housing, ability to listen to music, ability to check out for a while via substances, healthcare…etc) is illogical and counterproductive. Sure it may make one feel better in the moment, but it does nothing to change the long-term trajectory of that person’s financial situation (though admittedly there’s no guarantee that not upgrading to a higher end item would in any way move the needle either - but there’s statistically more chance of having an effect over a longer period of time if practiced consistently). OP is an adult and I’m treating them as such. I would argue that avoiding uncomfortable truths and feedback is infantilizing and presupposes ones own judgment of what one can/can’t handle in place of leaving it to the person themselves to synthesize and process the feedback. If OP feels I’ve wronged them or been detrimental to their mental health with my comments I will gladly bow out of the thread and say no more, but I would hope that they’d instead hear the feedback and reassess some of their practices instead. Yeah we can’t change the system and we have no control over the random events that will thrust themselves into our lives, but we still have choice over ourselves and our actions on the micro level.
