Reply #436: Thank you for doing all of that.

[knitter4democracy]

I'm sure that what you do really matters in real life. You know what it's like for people in desperate straits, horrible times in their lives when they're so close to the swirling darkness and even death, and you help them. That is awesome.

I think you are misunderstanding Bobbie, though. She's not asking for help for herself--she's trying to get through to us here that we need to be agitating for better, permanent solutions to poverty, not just doing yet another shelter (those places are scary) or yet another handout. Yes, the handout and the shelter work for right now, but they aren't real solutions. That's all she wants--real solutions. So she's mad that few think real solutions are possible--that anger is understandable, don't you think?

See, I used to teach high school, before I had kids. My students would rant and rave, scream in my face, throw desks at me, whatever. Some days, that anger would really get to me, and I would cry all the way home. It wasn't until my second year when some of my seniors who'd graduated came back and told me how much I really had helped, how well they were doing that I finally got it: they'd been angry at feeling trapped. They were angry at a messed-up system that, even though I was just trying to help, I was a part of. I was a safe person to yell at, too. So they yelled. They screamed. They threw desks. Then, they graduated, grew up a little, and when they looked back, they could see how my pitiful attempts to teach had helped. It wasn't until they were out of the situation that they could see. While they were in it, all authority figures were the enemy. Don't trust anyone over 20, that sort of thing. When they were out, had grown up a bit, they looked at it all differently, the way you and I can see it as adults.

I'm not saying Bobbie's a teenager or a child by any means. I'm saying that, when someone's trapped in a sick system, a broken, messed-up system, they rage at everyone they see as part of the system. It's not until they're out that they can see who really helped and who didn't.