I’m sure by now you’ve all heard the news reports about Ted Williams, the homeless man from Columbus, Ohio. For anyone who hasn’t, I’ll summarize it here: A few months ago, a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch was driving on I-71 when saw a man panhandling on the side of the road. The reporter had a camera in his car that he kept running in the event that something of interest happened. He pulled over to talk to the man and to see what he was selling. Williams was simply speaking to people in exchange for money. His catch was that he has a voice unlike most; he has the kind of voice you expect from a radio personality or movie promo announcer.
After this strange meeting, the reporter went on his way, but the world didn’t find out about it until a few weeks ago, when he uploaded the video clip to the internet. Soon, job offers from all over the country, including Hollywood, started pouring in, and he was even reunited with his 90 year old mother on Dr. Phil (*cough* fraud *cough*). In the short course of a few weeks, his life completely turned around, and I’m happy for him. There have been some rumors as of late that he may have regressed into drinking again, but that’s not what I want to write about here.
No, the subject of this post is the reaction society has had towards him. People have been so accepting of him, so willing to give him a second chance, and frankly I applaud this and wish it happened more often. But why has society reacted this way to him? This is a man who has admitted to alcoholism and drug use; people like this are almost universally shunned. Our reasoning is that they committed such acts once, so they will certainly do it again, that people cannot change; to quote Inspector Javert from “Les Miserables”, “Once a thief, forever a thief”.
This is a dangerous and naïve point of view.
Firstly, this assumes that people are born a certain way, and that is the way that they will always be, that our morality is completely inherited. I must disagree. I believe that that is only partially what makes up our morality. The other factors are our upbringing, the people that raise us and the area we live in. I have a different point of view and a different set of morals from someone that lives in Europe, for example, but that is not to say either of us is wrong or bad. What I’m getting at is that who we are and how we react to things is dictated mostly by what the people that raised us taught us. If you were raised in a convent, you’d likely be a kind and benevolent person; on the other hand, if you were raised by a couple of Neo-Nazi skinheads, then . . . well, I would not ever want to be near you.
It is these teachings we receive in our formative years that really formulate our minds; however, that is not to say that it is a guarantee that we will turn out the way our elders want us to. But even if we completely rebel and become something worlds apart from those before us, we will still hold some of their ideals; this is why even though we disagree on things on an individual basis, people in general have the same basic ideals. One of these ideals has created the belief that a criminal must inherently be a bad person, and will always be this person. I would like to profess my belief in what Anne Frank also believed, that all people are inherently good. Some people say that good and evil are a point of view, but I must disagree. When someone says this, what they really mean is that anyone who’s against me must be bad. Frankly, we all aspire to be “good”; that is, we all want to live in a kind, peaceful and benevolent world. We all want an end to war and poverty and hunger and greed. The “evil” arises because we disagree on how to go about getting these things.
Now, this is where the breakdown occurs. We want to think that all people are good, but when presented with someone from a bad part of town or someone with a criminal record, we automatically assume the worst in them. We are just as racist and prejudiced as we have always been, and we can’t pretend otherwise. Mr. Williams is one lucky SOB in that society didn’t judge him as just another homeless drunk.
Unfortunately, Mr. Williams is in the minority that has escaped this auto-judgment. Most people in these kinds of situations are not so fortunate. The best contemporary example is the travesty that is the Sex Offender Registry. When someone is labeled a sex offender, society automatically deems them to be incorrigible monsters. They can’t find jobs, or even places to live. They are shunned worse than lepers. It is auto-judgment at its worst, and it’s very ironic in America, where the prominent religion is Christianity. Didn’t Christ say “do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”? (For the record, I am not religious, nor am I an atheist. I simply do not conform to organized religions.) So why do we disregard this teaching? Why can’t we see that the axe swings both ways? This childish judgment of things we don't know or understand is what divides us; instead of taking the time to learn and understand things, we simply assume that anyone not sharing our view is wrong and a threat. We simply label them as the enemy, thereby punishing the masses for the mistakes of only a few.
I say again, this point of view is dangerous and far too naïve.
We need to open our minds and be accepting of all our differences instead of bitching because we assume someone may wrong us. Society's reaction to Ted Williams made me feel hopeful that perhaps someday we can finally let go of these pointless prejudices and start to grow up. We need to learn to forgive people for their transgressions, and this is not an easy thing to do, especially on a large scale. It is easy to forgive one person, but hard to forgive a group; this is why we harp on not just criminals, but on many different cultural groups as well. As human beings, we live for holding grudges, but all this does is destroy who we really are. It makes us jump to conclusions instead of examining all the facts and making a well thought out and rational decision.
Now, some people would probably call me a hypocrite already because even I discredit certain beliefs and cultures (i.e. the Nazis) that I don’t claim to have a complete understanding of. I have always said that only you know what you need to believe, and I will not dispute your beliefs so long as they are legal and are not causing harm or forcing anyone to do things they do not wish to. In fact, I believe that every culture that has ever existed has wanted the same basic things: peace, safety and security. The difference is how they go about getting them.
Humanity has indeed begun to grow up, and I like to think that we are considerably far more mature than we once were, but we still have so far to go. Currently, I consider us to be the equivalent of a teenager. We are snot-nosed, arrogant little bastards who think we know everything and that everyone else is wrong. But I faith that one day, we will grow out of this behavior just as every teenager does.
