Exposing America’s ugly side, alms seekers dim festive lights
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Published: Dec 25, 2011 00:23 Updated: Dec 25, 2011 14:26
The Capitol stands tall, its dome shining in the afternoon sun. Right in its shadow and just a block away, a shocking spectacle unfolds.
Walk along a tree-lined stretch and hit the Union Station and right next to it sit the alms seekers. Their pleas rent the air as thousands emerge from one of America’s busiest railway stations and melt into the busy avenues of the national capital.
Beggars sitting plonk next to United States’ supreme decision making body can come as a real shocker for someone fed on a constant diet of America being the ultimate El Dorado, the land of milk and honey.
All the more unreal for a country where people spent a staggering $11.9 billion on a single day’s retail buying frenzy on Thanksgiving Day, an annual sales jamboree that symbolizes capitalist America and its penchant for conscious consumption.
Sales skyrocket. Poverty hits rock bottom. What disparity is this?
As much for its shock value, major cities like New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia or San Francisco throw up equally stark images of alms seekers.
Busy traffic junctions, public places, tourist havens and rail and bus stations are at the heart of the American alms activity as in the third world countries. Only, beggars here are less pesky and more polite. Many choose the language of silence to showcase their homelessness, unemployment and despair with placards narrating their plight in pithy sentences.
According to the American Census Bureau, the ranks of America’s poorest poor have swelled to a record high and one in every 15 people is ranked the poorest of the poor today. About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 per cent of the country’s population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 per cent or less of the official poverty level.
In 2010, the poorest poor meant those with an income of $5,570 or less per annum for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.
Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people below the poverty line.
Poverty is spread widely across metropolitan areas and various communities.
The number of Hispanics living in poverty crossed that of African-Americans. Estimates revealed that 27.6 per cent of Hispanics lived in poverty, compared with 23.4 per cent for blacks. This was attributed to lower participation of the Spanish-speaking immigrants in government aid programs such as housing and food stamps.
The District of Columbia, housing the national capital, ranked highest for the poorest of poor with a growth of 10.7 per cent.
An early morning drive along the lanes behind its Union Station reveals more shockers — the homeless roughing it out in the open. The freezing night is far from over as cold wind sweeps the streets making them huddle up in quiet contemplation, a scene again associated with run down areas near bus stations in Asia and Africa and not the land of opportunities and immigrants.
Northern Baltimore, an hour’s drive away from the national capital and comprising of a sizable African American population, showcases poverty aplenty with its blocks and streets full of rundown houses and back alleys filled with the jobless.
While poverty continues to be the domain of the under privileged African American and Hispanic sections, one can find many white Americans also taking to the alms avenue.
This writer watched a white woman at Newark rail station on the New Jersey-New York border desperately seeking monies from passersby for a train ride home.
A white youngster thrust his certificates at travelers in the New York Penn Station in the heart of consumer paradise Manhattan and the glittering Times Square and sought monies for a train ticket to enable him reach college. Sham or abject need, one wasn’t sure in this case.
On a recent visit, some more white Americans were found preparing to retire for the night arranging newspaper sheets and old and soiled comforters outside the busy New Brunswick railway station in New Jersey, waiting for the last train to leave.
Many more were pursuing the big-hearted on the high streets of Washington DC and its wealthy suburbs in Northern Virginia and Maryland.
Eating, sleeping and living on the streets, a cold Christmas awaits these penniless and the homeless with temperatures hovering around the zero degree Celsius point. No, Santa Claus would not be knocking at their doors simply because they have no roof over their heads. No Yuletide, only cold solitude for many of them.
Meanwhile, the huge Christmas tree in front of the White House, the shining tiara among the thousands dotting the landscape, is all aglow. America is already celebrating Christmas with streets and homes lit up brilliantly and festive spirit hanging thick in the air. There is laughter and merriment in the well-lit shops and restaurants. Carols lend warmth to the winter air.
Outside, a homeless man settles for the night on a bench clinging to his belongings stacked in a garbage bag.
The Capitol dome in the distance glistens in the moonlight.
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