- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Everyone else has already said what I was thinking about Ms. Dickerson, the audience this article is playing to, the conflation of race/class/sociopathy, etc., so I'll leave that alone.
Like others,my personal faith and political philosophy demand that I at least genuflect toward the Golden Rule. However, like all of us I too have had my charitable impulses eroded by no-class grifters.
I think the one positive takeaway from this article is: When you start to give things away or do favors for people, people with true class and the users tend to identify themselves by behavior rather quickly. When the users start showing out, you need to cut bait, and do it quickly. Users behave much like the 'Smith kids'--often you'll never get a "thank you", but the demands will quickly escalate as you are identified as a soft touch. Those with dignity on the other hand are usually effusively grateful, and perhaps a little abashed at receiving charity. Moving forward, I have had some success with a token quid-pro-quo system, not because I needed the cheap labor, but because some people appreciate the dignity that comes with exchanging services for goods. Everyone has something to contribute, even if it's watching your car or your dog while you run an errand. Ironically, that's what I see the drug dealers doing.
I see both kinds in my neighborhood; those who roll out after every snowstorm, offering to shovel walkways, and those who push up on pedestrians, demanding cash, and in some cases becoming abusive if they don't get it. Ms. Dickerson's largesse in the face of these kids' behavior went a couple of paragraphs beyond the common sense or street smarts I (stereotypically?) expect from a striver like her. Everyone I know would have cut those kids off long before she did.
God bless the social workers and others who have to deal with all comers. I couldn't do it.
