I was up very early after a decent night’s sleep, and proceeded to walk through and out of Charlottesville proper in the very early hours of the morning. The pedestrian thoroughfare I encountered and walked along, and the small group of homeless citizens sleeping there on those less than mean streets, provided an unusual juxtaposition of opposing societal forces – on the one hand hearkening back to my days living in Germany, where the cities were planned with walkers in mind and where the government cares for its downtrodden, and on the other hand reminding me that I am not at all in Europe; that the U.S government couldn’t give to f*cks that these people (and so many millions like them) are cold and roofless and suffering. The contrast became even more stark – and even more repugnant – when I flowed on and encountered fraternity row; a collection of mansions inhabited by those privileged &/or elite – those who were in no way one ounce more worthy of their warm and dry and plush social status than my homeless cousins passed just as few blocks further back …

“Your comfort becomes raw decadence when your poor must sleep in the streets.” ~ Scaughdt

“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a fundamental right – a primary fundament of any civil society – a basic necessity for any moral social system. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as dignified men and women, and the injustice – bot of actuality and of opportunity – that exists in almost every modern culture is not a functioning part of the human condition. Inequality is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the Soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it – both those on the short end of its tilted stick and those who disproportionately benefit from the same … Whatever is my right as a man is also the equal right of every other; and the degree to which I benefit from those privileges is a perfect reflection of my personal duty to ensure the same for everyone else – if not in my entire society, at the very least in my immediate community … of course, that equality is a good thing is both generally and readily accepted. What is lacking still amongst the many is a sense of the abject monstrosity and inexcusable immorality of inequality.” ~ inspired by Joss Whedon, Thomas Paine & Abraham J. Heschel

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, yes, and yet they will never enable us to bring about genuine lasting change. Bigotry and economic disparity are real conditions in all our lives in this day and age. So I urge each one of you to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside yourself and touch the terror and the loathing of the indifference and even the prejudice that lives here. See whose face it wears, and then vow to be better today – more kind – more just – more generous – more caring. For it is only when the the personal becomes the political that we can begin to illuminate all our choices and build our world anew.” ~ via Audre Lorde

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt