Sparkle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
myownface) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2018-01-18 11:31 am
myownface) wrote in fandomhigh2018-01-18 11:31 am
Entry tags:
Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Thursday, Period 2
Okay, back in the classroom. Sparkle was only a little intimidated by the group of students he had this semester. Which was impressive, since it was half the size of the first group he'd taught this to, and even had one of the same students.
He was going to just run with it. Yeah.
"Okay," he said, "so, this week we're going to talk about the reasons people might end up homeless. Using, you know, facts and data, instead of that 'oh, he's just going to spend it on drugs' bullshit speculation that a lot of people throw around when they pass some panhandler on the side of the road, making me immediately want to smack them into next month. Maybe they are. I dunno. You dunno. But it always kind of feels like people say that sort of shit because it dehumanizes the person sitting in the gutter that little bit more. Makes it easy to pretend they aren't there."
Which, in this class, he was saying just as much to get students to stop it if they did as he was to brace them for overhearing that shit if they ever wound up in that situation.
"Reasons for homelessness vary from city to city," he noted. "Or, at least, the frequency of those reasons varies. But a quick list, from a survey taken in Vancouver, has, from most to least, poverty as the number one reason, with 85.6% of people surveyed claiming it as a factor. From there, the list names housing crisis as a factor, followed then by substance abuse, mental illness, medical needs - yes, even in Canada this shit happens, family or relationship breakdown, abuse or a lack of safety, or being a new immigrant with no real options. You can dig into any one of those categories from there and make subcategories for them, if you want to, or draw lines connecting one and the next. Reasons for poverty might include things like racism or transphobia making it nearly impossible for somebody to find work. Mental illness and abuse are often linked - often, it's important to note. Not always."
He paused. Was any of this relevant to this class? He didn't know. But the next part was sure as hell relevant to him.
"There are other factors to take in, still. Things like how, in America, while only five to ten percent of the total youth population identifies as LGBT - a difficult thing to take an accurate measurement of because of anything from it being unsafe to come out as queer to self discovery being a journey that can take years, up to forty percent of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. And out of those kids, family rejection and abuse are some of the top factors leading to them being on the streets."
Woo, he got through the hard part. Somebody give him a damn cookie.
"Last week, we also touched on personal rights and the importance of freedom," he went on. "Which bears elaborating here, too. There are a lot of factors that the people who are at the top of the food chain are going to use to keep other people down once they're at rock bottom. They'll point at things like race, disability, mental illness, gender, religion, sexual identity, and so on, and then use those things to justify to themselves that the people who are at the bottom deserve to be there. Once you can be identified as any one of those so-called undesirable things, things you have no control over and which shouldn't be factors that society uses to place value on another person, it gets a lot harder to keep your head above the water. There's active pressure from the people with money and security to keep you down, as somebody with neither, because for fucked-up, 'you aren't a white, straight, able-bodied Christian male' reasons, someone thinks you don't deserve it."
And shit, Sparkle had gotten off pretty light on that checklist. He smiled humorlessly, and then sighed and leaned back at a desk.
"I can't ask anyone to, like, come up with catch-all solutions to any of these problems here in class," he noted. "The fight for equality... basically anywhere... is always a long and hard-fought one that can't be remedied overnight. It should be remedied overnight, because that shit is bullshit, but that just... isn't how people work. And in order to address poverty as the number one issue leading to homelessness, half the battle is going to be running down that list and tackling those other factors, too. But, you know what? I'm gonna let you all give it a try, anyway."
He waved a hand.
"Anything I mentioned today. Throw rocks at it. Pick it apart. Try to figure out why it's a thing, or what people can do to make it less of a thing. Mental illness is on that list. So does society as a whole need to have a conversation about the stigmatization of things like depression and PTSD? What about the homeless queer kids? Or the abused? The ones in need of medical assistance who just can't find the care they need? Bounce it around. And keep an open mind when you do. Maybe you'll learn something. Hell, maybe I will."
He was going to just run with it. Yeah.
"Okay," he said, "so, this week we're going to talk about the reasons people might end up homeless. Using, you know, facts and data, instead of that 'oh, he's just going to spend it on drugs' bullshit speculation that a lot of people throw around when they pass some panhandler on the side of the road, making me immediately want to smack them into next month. Maybe they are. I dunno. You dunno. But it always kind of feels like people say that sort of shit because it dehumanizes the person sitting in the gutter that little bit more. Makes it easy to pretend they aren't there."
Which, in this class, he was saying just as much to get students to stop it if they did as he was to brace them for overhearing that shit if they ever wound up in that situation.
"Reasons for homelessness vary from city to city," he noted. "Or, at least, the frequency of those reasons varies. But a quick list, from a survey taken in Vancouver, has, from most to least, poverty as the number one reason, with 85.6% of people surveyed claiming it as a factor. From there, the list names housing crisis as a factor, followed then by substance abuse, mental illness, medical needs - yes, even in Canada this shit happens, family or relationship breakdown, abuse or a lack of safety, or being a new immigrant with no real options. You can dig into any one of those categories from there and make subcategories for them, if you want to, or draw lines connecting one and the next. Reasons for poverty might include things like racism or transphobia making it nearly impossible for somebody to find work. Mental illness and abuse are often linked - often, it's important to note. Not always."
He paused. Was any of this relevant to this class? He didn't know. But the next part was sure as hell relevant to him.
"There are other factors to take in, still. Things like how, in America, while only five to ten percent of the total youth population identifies as LGBT - a difficult thing to take an accurate measurement of because of anything from it being unsafe to come out as queer to self discovery being a journey that can take years, up to forty percent of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. And out of those kids, family rejection and abuse are some of the top factors leading to them being on the streets."
Woo, he got through the hard part. Somebody give him a damn cookie.
"Last week, we also touched on personal rights and the importance of freedom," he went on. "Which bears elaborating here, too. There are a lot of factors that the people who are at the top of the food chain are going to use to keep other people down once they're at rock bottom. They'll point at things like race, disability, mental illness, gender, religion, sexual identity, and so on, and then use those things to justify to themselves that the people who are at the bottom deserve to be there. Once you can be identified as any one of those so-called undesirable things, things you have no control over and which shouldn't be factors that society uses to place value on another person, it gets a lot harder to keep your head above the water. There's active pressure from the people with money and security to keep you down, as somebody with neither, because for fucked-up, 'you aren't a white, straight, able-bodied Christian male' reasons, someone thinks you don't deserve it."
And shit, Sparkle had gotten off pretty light on that checklist. He smiled humorlessly, and then sighed and leaned back at a desk.
"I can't ask anyone to, like, come up with catch-all solutions to any of these problems here in class," he noted. "The fight for equality... basically anywhere... is always a long and hard-fought one that can't be remedied overnight. It should be remedied overnight, because that shit is bullshit, but that just... isn't how people work. And in order to address poverty as the number one issue leading to homelessness, half the battle is going to be running down that list and tackling those other factors, too. But, you know what? I'm gonna let you all give it a try, anyway."
He waved a hand.
"Anything I mentioned today. Throw rocks at it. Pick it apart. Try to figure out why it's a thing, or what people can do to make it less of a thing. Mental illness is on that list. So does society as a whole need to have a conversation about the stigmatization of things like depression and PTSD? What about the homeless queer kids? Or the abused? The ones in need of medical assistance who just can't find the care they need? Bounce it around. And keep an open mind when you do. Maybe you'll learn something. Hell, maybe I will."
Re: Discuss!
She went stony-faced again. She might not, y'know, hate this class entirely or whatever. And now she was bad at it. Uma didn't like being bad at things.
Re: Discuss!
To hell with it. If she didn't want to answer, she wouldn't.
"So... what is the reason to be on the Isle?"
He had his suspicions, or at least a few inklings, but he wanted to be sure.
Re: Discuss!
Re: Discuss!
"Okay, so... basically it's a prison colony?" He pursed his lips a little in thought. "I'd ask why bother bringing people back from the dead just to punish them, but... I mean, the sort of people that ship all their criminals off to an island are usually exactly the same kind of shitty people who think that sort of thing is a good idea, too."
And now he was looking thoughtful again.
"I think this class might still be useful," he decided. "If I'm talking about things you don't have context for, feel free to ask me to elaborate on it, in class or after it. That shit isn't a reflection on you so much as the assholes who put you in a situation where you wouldn't encounter any of it in the first place."
Re: Discuss!
Her whole life, she'd been fighting to find ways to get off the island, had spent it resenting the people who kept her there, eating their garbage and making due with their scraps. But the justice of the situation had never entered into it. She was a VK, the Isle was where the villains were, that made sense.
Or maybe thinking about it that way had just never been a priority because it didn't matter whether it was just or not. She'd been trapped there either way.
"Doesn't matter," she said quickly. "Villains don't care about justice. We care about getting our own way."
Re: Discuss!
"What would your way be, if you could have it?"
Because she hadn't struck him as especially villainous since the semester started.
Re: Discuss!
"Get my crew, get my ship, get off the goddamn Isle," Uma said immediately.
And then stalled because pretty much all of their plans ended with 'get off the goddamn Isle.' It was hard to figure out what came next when they had no idea what existed beyond the barrier.
Re: Discuss!
"Get a taste for freedom for the first time in your life? See the world?" Sparkle offered her a little smile. "Figure out what to do with the rest of your life based on whatever you find out there, maybe? Did you grow up on the Isle?"
Because, see, that right there? That was injustice.
Re: Discuss!
"Yeah, we all did," Uma said. "Born there, about four years after they built it and put the barrier up. Only one to ever get out under my own power, too."
Instead of responding to an invitation from the king and forgetting about everyone else the minute their foot touched Auradon's shore.
Re: Discuss!
"Huh," Sparkle said, looking impressed, actually. "So you're resourceful. That's good. Actually, that's awesome. I mean, shitty they were keeping kids locked up, too. There's your injustice, right there. But you don't seem like the type to let that hold you down."
Re: Discuss!
"I don't need somebody who never suffered a day in their life to give me a chance," Uma snarled. "I don't need a fancy invitation and a handhold. I'm gonna take what I'm due, whether the fancy lords and ladies like it or not."
Re: Discuss!
Sparkle was the best role model.