I. "We've got you. Period."
A well-worded sign! They exist!
"Roosevelt Library has supplies for people who menstruate."The sign is on the bathroom wall at my branch library (a block from where I live), directly across the street from a big high school. Kids hang out there after school.
The sign could read, "We have menstrual supplies" or something neutral like that, but by saying "people who menstruate" the library actively acknowledges in a few, simple words that not all people who menstruate identify as female--and it supports those people without leaving anyone else out.
And "We've got you. Period." is a good pun: "We've got you, person having a period, no matter who you are--don't be afraid to ask us".
Kids who are trans or non-binary could use such supportive language--and offering period supplies is great. At the same time, the poster's main point is not political, it's caring for the body.
Not that caring for bodies isn't political! I mean, the sign is not harping on political points in a superior tone.
One of my favorite examples of that superior type, at more than one establishment:
"Please address staff in gender-neutral terms."
WITH NO SUGGESTIONS.
Like, if you don't know what a gender-neutral term is, you have failed the test.
I notice that people who are so intent on being inclusive of one difference often exclude others. (Another reason the library sign is so good--it doesn't do that.)
In the "please address" sign's case:
Can't read?
Poor vision?
Don't read English?
Failed the test again.
Called someone ma'am or sir?
*TRAP DOOR OPENS UNDER YOUR FEET*
Hm. There's a small glitch in the library's sign: It doesn't say the supplies are free. But it's implied, I'd leave it.
Also, the hands are pinky-white, and lots of the high school students are not.
But, still, well done!
II. Blood on the Street
At work, you know how the City fenced the little park next door, where people were living (. . . and dealing)? And did nothing for the people themselves?
The City even took away the trash bins they'd supplied at my request.
The results were about like I predicted. I say "about" because actually, they're worse.
People moved across the street, squeezed into an alley and on someone's lawn, and in the road itself, where they are openly dealing drugs and sex, visibly using (nodding out, or dancing around in a daze), and fighting.
One murder so far.
Needless to say, there are no Porta-potties or handwashing stations.
The clear-eyed people I'd talked with in the park, the ones who were just hanging out socializing, have moved elsewhere it seems.
It's all hardcore business now.
Really hardcore.
Like movies about New York City in the 1970s.
Mr Furniture told me, "Don't go over there, San Francisco," and I don't.
I have taken to parking my bike in the back and going in and out the donations bay.
It's hard to know what to do with such a snarl, when the people with power in the City do nothing, or make it worse.
I'm stumped.
One of the volunteers set up a Free Ice Water dispenser, when temps were in the 90s, which was a great thing to do.
The City's actions––and inaction––are beyond the scope of my understanding. (By "the City", I mean members of the city council, the police, and other so-called public servants.)
Big Boss himself, he who grew up in Crack City, said he can't believe the situation.
He continues to talk to the City, so far to no effect.
Big Boss contacted a non-government program that works with sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. They supply packets of supplies for "people who menstruate", and he requested some.
(I've complained he doesn't take practical steps. Here, I am proven wrong.)
The contents of the package are well thought-out--obviously this program knows what it's doing--a pleasure to see.
There's a bar of soap. And a washcloth. And gentle wet-wipes (for tender bits).
Socks and panties. (Underthings are always in high demand.)
Shampoo. Deodorant. Menstrual pads and tampons.
Toothpaste and toothbrush.
A comb, wide-toothed for all hair types.
All in a plain, plastic grocery bag, with nothing to flag it, nothing to make the receiver a target.
And no sneaky agenda, nothing about God.
(Sometimes bags of stuff for people on the street come with a "God Bless You" message.)
Only thing--the flier inside with the number to call if you want help to get out of sex work, it is wordy.
Big Boss was waving it around in the air:
"No one's going to read all this!"
I took the wordy flier and cut out the main points. I Xeroxed that section, zoomed up big, and put the copies in the bags.
So, I did that.
As time goes on, maybe I'll see more I can do.
III. Periodic Dark Nights
Big Boss says the people on the street need Jesus (that's what saved him):
"They need to know they are not accidents. Your life has meaning, there's a reason for you being here."In this case, where political organizations can't do anything for you––say, even if you leave the streets, then what?––I agree with him that could help, for sure.
This is a good time for me to be rereading Flannery O'Connor's letters:
"Right now the whole world is going through a dark night of the soul," she wrote a friend in 1955.
O'Connor is not much interested in social conditions, so far as I can tell. The social message of scripture is not her concern.
However, she is radical:
The world is grotesque; therefore God's grace works in grotesque ways and through grotesque situations and people.
Grace, like water, seeks its own level.
I see that.
In her stories, the complacent, the tidy-minded, the
well-meaning do-gooders are not damned, certainly;
but neither are
they... neither are they the, um, the weighty saints--the uranium on the periodic table of grace.
