May the muffins be forever in your favour.I just don't understand some people..... · 2:06am March 29th
I was only out to buy some simple things today. I had some change left and I went to a nearby park to give it to a homeless person. I couldn't find one and went back to the train station and mall where I started. A man was standing there in front of the entrance, with heavy luggage, a huge backpack and a big suitcase. He asked me for change and said he has no place to sleep. I was unsure about giving him the change at first, because I thought he's a stranded tourist or traveller (which didn't make any sense, in hindsight, stranded tourists usually have money to get under a roof somewhere, but it was late and I was tired and I guess the heavy luggage fooled me), and I wanted to keep the change for a homeless person, but somehow I couldn't say no, so I gave it to him. Then he said something else and I stayed and listened.
He told me that he is a ukrainian refugee. He came to my country and was trying to get help, but didn't succeed. At the ukrainian embassy, they only told him that he has to wait two months until he can work here and didn't even offer him a place to sleep. And at the center for ukrainian refugees, they only let him sleep there for three nights and they didn't believe him that he is from Ukraine, even though he showed his passport to them. He showed his passport to me, too. Someone stole his wallet with his credit card and 400€ in cash, so he could not get into a hostel and had no place to sleep. I couldn't offer him one, because I only live in a shared flat and have no own apartment and my roommate probably wouldn't be okay if I offered a stranger to sleep in the living room. But I gave him 50€ so he could sleep somewhere for at least a night or two and bought him food for 31.77€, with money from my savings. I was shocked afterwards, because I took a rather big financial risk by going at my savings that have already suffered since December and I can't allow myself to do this a second time in that capacity, because it would bring me into trouble. But something else shocked me more.
We went into a small grocery store that was open until 11 PM. A female employee there was immediately hostile when she saw him. Said that he can't beg people for money in the store. I told her he isn't here to beg, we're just shopping. He assured her that he won't beg people in the store for money. She repeated the same thing, like she didn't hear him or me, and I told her that I met him, that I gave him money so he can sleep somewhere and that I'm now buying him some food. She didn't like to hear that.
After I told her all that, she turned at me and asked "Why do you buy him food?" and then said "I wouldn't buy him food.". Up until that point, she thought he was a homeless person from my country. Stores here hate it when homeless people ask customers for money and always send them out, which is bad enough already. But then I asked her, feeling mad about her earlier statement: "Do you even know who this is? Or where he comes from?" and then followed up with "He's from Ukraine.". And then she looked at me and said coldly "So what? I'm from Hungary and I have a shitty president, but no one gives me money.". He then continued talking to her and explain himself, he was apparently noticing that she wasn't talking nice about him, but she did not listen to him and not respond and just went away. He went after her and still tried to reason with her. I told him that he shouldn't bother and that it isn't worth it because she's rascist. And then she sent the store security at us. We told the security guy the same thing, that he isn't begging for money, that I just buy him some food, and he let him stay in the store with me. But he kept an eye on him the entire time. We then picked up some food he wanted to have, I paid and we left the store shortly before they closed.
Afterwards, I talked with him some more, he told me that he also needs to buy pills for a health condition he has with the money I gave him and that he can sleep in a tent inside an abandoned train car at another train station that's farther away. So I accompanied him to the subway, explained him how to get to the train station and waited with him until it arrived. We said goodbye and separated.
I couldn't process all of this while it happened, I was tired and everything went so fast. While I was sitting in the subway station later and waited for my own ride, I was thinking about what that female employee said and only then I processed how evil that was. Not only was she acting rascist, she even tried to prevent a person in need from getting help. I feel cold since I heard her talk like that and I just don't know what to say about that. I don't understand it. That's bothering me and I had to put this somewhere.
She forgot what it was like being a stranger in a strange land and having to rely on the kindness of others.
Some people are just intolerant. It sucks, but it's how it is. As an American of mixed heritage, I'm far too used to such treatment. I'm so glad you were able to help that man with what you could. Especially in these uncertain times, anything can make a difference. I know this experience will stick with you, and I'm glad you decided to vent here, where others could see and potentially help (not that I think my ramblings are much help.
).
5774120
Your comment has shown me a new angle to this event. I had already processed that she came from another country herself, but I wasn't making this connection:
How can she be so cold-hearted towards a refugee from another country when she was in a similar situation once?
This makes me also feel confused now and even more shocked. Was she different once and got led onto the path of rascism somehow later? But then, how is this possible, for someone to change like that?
I can't wrap my head around this. It endlessly confuses me.
5774121
Your comment made me feel better and feel that I did the right thing. I already knew that I did the right thing there, but seeing it spelled out like that emphasizes it. And it makes me more confident that I'm not evil and that, for and despite the mistakes I've made in the last seven years, I'm still a good person. With that, your comment has helped me.
I only didn't respond for so long because I needed to get some distance from this woman's reaction and acquire more strength before I could think about this event again and formulate a response to the comments I got.
.
I hope it has made enough of a difference. I haven't seen him since then, even though I come to this train station and mall very often and I expect he would go there again because that's where he got help. But maybe I just missed him every time. He might not be there every day. I don't want to assume the worst.
5779528
Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia. For a short time she illegally received social security benefits. She devoted her career to speaking out against social security and trying to convince people to convince their representatives to defund and disband social security, she supported making it much more difficult for people to immigrate to the U.S., she supported decreasing taxes on the wealthy and she villainized poor people. Oh, she also married a wealthy man.
She espoused the philosophy of materialism in her speeches and writings. Materialism espouses that you only make friends with someone if they can do something that helps you, you only marry someone if they can advance you. In materialism, relationships with people are only seen as transactional.
Maybe this woman also married someone wealthy and forgot where she came from?
5779530
I am not sure. Would that be enough to change like that, marrying a wealthy person? And how would it happen? Manipulation by the wealthy person? Or the power of money? Would one get spoiled by all the money and that makes them develop a view like that?
I can't tell. I don't have experience with that, because I don't have much money. I can only speculate about the reason myself.
5779534
When you get to livin' that phat life, sometimes you forget where you came from and what it was like to struggle.
5779529
Well I'm glad my comments were of some help after all. You know, fate is a truly curious thing. It can make us cross paths with the most unexpected people in the most surprising of times. This was one of those times I believe. Who knows if you'll see one another again. Only time and patience will tell if it is meant to be so that you may be potentially able to assist once again if possible. That situation and that horrible woman's response was completely uncalled for and yet I'm so relieved you took the high ground and took time to step back and reboot from that experience. Morally rebooting takes strength most don't have.
5779535
I know that people who have become rich often start looking down on poor people, even though they've been poor themselves once. I can't tell from where, but I know this for a very long time. I just don't understand why she is rascist, even though she probably made plenty of experiences with rascism herself. But now, I am also not sure anymore if she really is rascist. It felt like it in this moment, because of her cold rejection of learning where he came from and because learning that didn't change her mind about him. But maybe she thinks like that about all poor people equally, no matter where they come from.
I am now thinking about the fact that she has an ordinary job in a grocery store. That doesn't seem like she is rich and wealthy, if she has to take a job like that. Maybe she used to be and lost her riches somehow? But then, wouldn't she become more grounded again by that? Maybe she is rascist, after all, and riches have nothing to do with it. In my country, many people are rascist. But if that's the case with her, I still don't understand how someone who is a migrant themselves can be so rascist. Or maybe rascism is more complicated than I know. There is rascism between ukrainians and russians, even though their culture and some of their history is similar. Maybe it's more complicated than I can grasp.
Or maybe it isn't rascism, even someone who works in a grocery store has more money than a homeless person and would feel rich compared to them. So maybe it's elitism and arrogance, after all. There is a lot of that where I live, too.
I am not sure what drives this woman. I am still just as shocked as I was on that day. This is too complex. I guess I'll never find the answer to this predicament and will never be able to make sense of it. And maybe that's better. I don't want to label people as "evil", but I don't know what to think of this woman and her cold behavior.
5779536
I am not sure if I was meant to meet him, even though what I am going through since December makes it hard to believe in a coincidence, or if it was coincidence and I just happened to meet one of the many people in need who are around all the time. But I know it was right to do that. And that it's important that I'm more kind to people.
5779956
Just because someone is working an ordinary job doesn't mean that they aren't married to someone who is rich. I met a woman who was waiting tables at the Huddle House who was married to a very successful businessman. They had kids together and the kids were grown and out the nest, and she was working as a waiter to keep her busy.
Sometimes people who are married to someone who is rich will work a job for that little bit of financial independence, so that when they wanna buy little things for themselves, they don't have to ask their spouse for spending money.
Sometimes people grow up in communities where being bigoted against people from certain other communities is seen as the norm. I recently found out that in Seoul there is this weird level of racism against black women, on the one hand they want to date them and have sex with them, on the other hand they don't want to have kids with them. Grecians are very intolerant of Balkan peoples, even though Greece sits on the southern third of the Balkan Peninsula and the majority of the world views Greece as a Balkan country. Bigotry and intolerance doesn't have to make sense, even to the people who practice it. It's a primal emotion that might have its evolutionary origins based back when we were still tribal hunter-gatherers and we existed alongside other human sister species. It's the old "those people who live over there might look almost the same as we do, but they pray to (the) god(s) slightly differently and they carve an extra notch into their [insert tool and/or recreational/ceremonial instrument here], that makes them wrong and inferior" mentality.