Please don't #FitchTheHomeless

In the last few weeks, Abercrombie & Fitch’s CEO Mike Jeffries has been getting some less-than-reputable publicity. Following statements defending the company’s exclusionary sizing protocol, an interview has surfaced with information that A&F goes so far as to routinely deny requests to donate clothing to those in need. Rather than give clothing those who are less fortunate, A&F maintains their staunch commitment to the company’s pristine, “all-American”, cool-kid image.

One anonymous A&F District Manager was quoted in an interview saying, “Abercrombie and Fitch doesn’t want to create the image that just anybody, poor people, can wear their clothing. Only people of a certain stature are able to purchase and wear the company name.”

Abhorrent. Repulsive. I think we can all agree on that. Judging from the state of social media, we all do agree on that.

In response, some have taken to ranting. Others, like Los Angeles filmmaker Greg Karber, have taken to action. Karber has launched a movement to “readjust” Abercrombie & Fitch’s image, coined #FitchTheHomeless.

His short film shows clips of Karber purchasing up all A&F apparel from a local thrift store, driving to Skid Row in LA, and delivering the clothing to the homeless. While it's a seemingly laudable way to provide clothing for those in need while sticking-it-to-the-corporate-man, I’m afraid that Karber’s “charity” has done even greater damage than A&F’s statements and policies.

For starters, let’s look at his movement’s name: #FitchTheHomeless. From square one, this movement was never about clothing people who are in need. It’s about thrusting what Karber himself refers to as “douchebag” clothing into the hands of scores of the nameless, faceless homeless.

Clips of Karber handing out the clothing show him placing pieces of A&F clothing onto the personal belongings or into the hands of the people of Skid Row and briskly moving along to the next token “homeless person”, leaving them with an new t-shirt or pants (nevermind if the clothing actually fits them) and a puzzled look.

Sure, Karber’s readjusting the brand name, but at the expense of the further dehumanization the people of Skid Row. We never hear from a recipient. We never learn their names. We never see more than a brief pan over their befuddled, care-worn faces.

Karber’s movement, with every retweet, share, comment, and like, drives the public’s image of the poor further and further away from the truth that these are people with names, personalities, and stories. Rather, we foster an image that destroys the humanity of marginalized people.

Consequently, we define these people by a lack of material wealth and then proceed to give them our unwanted (and now despised) clothing. Following the collective statements of A&F leadership, I think it’s fair to say that A&F’s critics wouldn’t be caught dead in A&F clothing. Just image the judgment from our peers! So instead we push the very clothing that represents bigotry, discrimination, and exclusion onto the marginalized. Sounds like a great way to value the people we claim to care about.

Unfortunately, this blog post will probably only reach a few people while Karber’s video will flood the public’s eye. But to me, that’s fine. Even if this entry causes only one person to think twice about the ways that we represent and misrepresent our vulnerable brothers and sisters, it’s completely worth it. I’m confident that the conviction of a few can change more ideas and policies than we think possible.

“Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

-Margaret Mead

This Nomadic Life

"...Not all those who wander are lost..."
-"All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter", JRR Tolkien

For the last day and a half, my housemates and I have been collegiate nomads. Not in the globetrotting sense, but in the our-house-on-campus-is-indefinitely-out-of-commission sense.

At 4 p.m. two days ago, we were informed that our house must be gutted, vacuumed, and vacated by 9 a.m. the following morning. Fumigation. A precautionary measure against a potential bedbug infestation. Everything out. Everything bagged. Everything quarantined. We couldn't believe the first week of the semester started this way.

Shock. Frustration. Panic. Catatonia. Focus.

With the help of faithful friends and supportive staff, our house exploded in a colorful, chaotic 4-hour-corral of clothes, books, and belongings into bags outside of the house. Vacuums roared, stereos bellowed, and footsteps thundered. Amidst the cacophony, I robotically peeled my decorations off of our walls and haphazardly tossed vibrant swaths of cloth into a Rubbermaid container. Hardly aware of my own movement, I watched "home" retreat into boxes and bags.

We awoke the next morning to impersonal walls, cramped furniture, and blazing heat. Clothing was treated as contaminated and I felt like a walking bomb. In my great foresight, I packed away all of my clothes before laying out an outfit for the next day. My textbooks, too. Nice. Now any sense of normalcy outside the house was tucked away in the formidable pile of bagged belongings.

It's truly surprising how displaced you can feel on a small, community oriented campus when your sense of home is removed. Sure, our house is still nestled sleepily over the bank and among the trees, but home is not there. Home is in a disorganized assortment of garbage bags sitting in the box truck outside the house. Home is hidden. Home is unattainable, for now.

I am exhausted. I would never have thought that decorations or organization could bring so much structure and relief to the pace of life. I think of the people who feel this everyday, and I am ashamed.

24 hours later, I am able to unpack a good deal of my clothes and sleep in my bed with the heat turned back down to a more palatable temperature. At the end of the day, I have a place to be, even if it's not a home right this moment.

I am hesitant to say that I can even begin to empathize with displaced individuals, but I feel that I at least have a mild appreciation for the feeling. For now. In a week, things will be back on walls and I will have a home-base. I already know how readily I will forget and move on, and I am a bit disappointed. Moreover, I realize that my sense of home is very tied to material order. Seems shamefully materialistic, but perhaps that's simply a fact of the matter. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Sorry Tolkien- it seems I'm a temporary nomad. In a sense, I'm wandering and I'm certainly feeling lost.

Picking Scabs

There's something oddly satisfying about fiddling with scabs. A strange gratification comes when, after carefully tugging at the coagulated shield, it breaks free and the sore underneath is exposed. Pink and thin, the skin is sensitive. It is tender, but not notably unpleasant. It is raw. It is real.

For 7 months and 19 days, I've been picking at scabs. 

On June 10th, I landed in America confused, angry, and disoriented. Confused about why I so desperately missed a culture which I barely knew, angry that I had already returned home, and disoriented as I tried to make sense of my mixed and volatile emotions. I was greeted with a "welcome home" from airport employees in Atlanta, but I barely heard them over the conflicting thoughts in my mind, which were noisily vying for attention like spoiled children. I smelled like sweat, poorly air-dried clothes, and a hint of DEET. I smelled like three and a half weeks of rugged tropical biology class in Latin America. I loved it. I clung to it.

In fact, I loved it so much that I didn't shower that night. When I awoke the next morning to the musty smell of an old bedroom, I caught a whiff of my own scent and was reminded that the experience was, in fact, quite real. Comforting. 

Days later, I strung together my memories in a line of pictures. Pictures worth thousands of words that I've already forgotten. The process was cathartic, but crippling. I was exposing sores before they'd been given a chance to heal. The fact was I didn't want them to heal. I wanted desperately to remain angry, confused, and disoriented. I wanted to poke at my thin, pink skin hidden under the fresh scab. I wanted raw. I wanted real.

What happened in those three and a half weeks is still impossible for be to adequately mold into words. It changed and challenged me. I came home different. I feared that if I lost the feelings that I re-entered America with, I would lose part of myself. I systematically and habitually licked my wounds in protest, precluding proper healing in hopes of creating a more permanent mark.

It's interesting to consider what the fear of forgetting does to the human soul. Rather than experiencing life presently, we yearn for the unreachable past and punish any means to move forward. We hop on the hamster wheel of anti-progress, futilely running away from where we are. It's a strange tug-of-war which constantly fluxes, only to change the very next day with an ever-exaggerated backlash. Perhaps we believe that we don't deserve to move on. Maybe we derive more comfort from feeling pain than from the possibility of feeling nothing at all.

As time passes, the oscillations attenuate and I'm able to listen to Julieta Venegas without surging into a debilitating 3-day-funk of missing Panama. Gallo pinto and plantains are comfort foods rich in good memories, not painful teases. However, I still can't bring myself to finish the small remainder of my Cafe Ruiz coffee, although it is far past the acceptable drinking period. Maybe I never will. 

My scabs remain, and although they slowly harden, I still test their vulnerability.

Just one more poke.....

New Year's Resolutions

Much of the last several months has been a confluence of coming and going, adjusting and settling, wanting out and wanting to stay.

Christmas came and went, as did the New Year, and while extraordinary things have happened in the last year, we all find ourselves in the same position: wishing desperately to fulfill last year's resolutions to lose weight, find love, get healthier, get happier, or some other absurdly vague benchmark. And on January 1st, we all find that strange determination to take another stab at our lofty goals. Somehow, simply starting the calendar over means that we become new and will change, though our goals and methods remain the same.

I know of and scoff these fallacies in theory. That's about it. I'm as much of a sucker as the next person.

After a several-month hiatus from regular exercise, I decided that the New Year's declaration for a new me was right: time to fasten my running shoes. I jogged onto the road and it felt good to be moving again, albeit clumsily and uncoordinated. Florence and the Machine came up next on my playlist and I bounded along in time with their catchy and get-stuck-in-your-head-for-the-rest-of-the-day song, The Dog Days Are Over. Mistake.

Having been a member of my high school drumline for 4 years, I simply cannot walk, run, or think out of step with a song I'm listening to. When Florence slowed, I slowed. When Florence sped up, I sped up. When Florence repeatedly beckoned "run fast for your mother, fast for your father", I ran faster. And faster. And faster. Arms were flailing madly and my legs stretched for larger and larger bounds.

Out of breath and lungs searing, I pressed on up a monstrous hill. With no breath to spare, my mind sputteringly (as if it too was breathing as heavily as the rest of my body) cursed my legs, my poor physical condition, and it's own pliability as I complied to Florence's requests of whomever the heck she was signing to.

Run faster.

Why?! I've already been running FOREVER!

I glanced at my watch. Five minutes.

Sweet.

Why am I so compliant? Why do I care if Florence says to run faster? Why do I go through this stupid charade of beginning a running routine every year? I hate running. I really do. Unless I'm in shape. But, of course, being in shape requires regular running in the first place. Crap.

I suppose the fact of the matter is that we are products of our culture and creatures of habit. Culture shapes values (like setting stupidly vague goals), drives motivation (like believing a different calendar date entitles me to attain these goals), and influences our reactions (like hanging up running shoes with inner shame, outwardly justifying our failures by saying that things got busy and work got to be too much). Rather than hate it, I'm choosing to realize it for what it is. I can't wish it away. I would have to unlearn everything and try again in another place with another culture that has flaws of its own. Not only is this impossible, but it's an extraordinary waste of time.

There is beauty in the absurdity of this cultural norm. Each year, we rediscover hope and determination. We look internally and are aware of what needs change. We name it and make attempts (although often short-lived and unsuccessful) to better ourselves. We learn about ourselves in exchange.

So cheers, everyone. Happy New Year. Here's to cycles of hope and realization, and understanding that while the year may start new, some things will never change.