so, a woman in detroit approaches me and asks me for money. an old story.

i'm not going to quantify the likeliness of any specific human misery occurring under the decline of capitalism in detroit, as i'm sure any horrible story you can imagine has a reality to it somewhere, any horror you can imagine has no doubt been experienced, but this particularly story struck me as embellished, to say the least.

i had enough money to get into an after hours somewhere (although the one i found didn't appear to be letting people in - there seemed to be people coming out, but not in, meaning it probably wasn't an after hours) and get something to eat. and, i can't risk getting stranded in a foreign country without any change. i can't access a bank machine in detroit. i don't have a credit card. if my bicycle were to break, for example, i might need to call a cab.

the bicycle. which i paid $30 usd for to leave locked up in detroit, and is now rusted over relatively badly; the fact that i owned this bike seemed to be some kind of argument that i should give her a proportion of the $30 i had in my pocket until i could get home.

i'm not insensitive to the situation. i understand that detroit has high poverty rates, and i don't think people should live in poverty. but, america cannot be looking to canadians on disability to reverse it's poverty rates, regardless of false perceptions around the cost of the bicycle they're driving.

i've run into this before, and i don't fully understand it. i don't project myself as an affluent person. so, why am i so often misinterpreted as one?

i understand that these con artists work people like this, but i was actually kind of taken aback by it, because while i don't have a sob story, i am not much better off than her in gross financial terms.

detroit has a problem with it's taxation system, and it's creating a lot of unnecessary hardship. but, if i am of any use in reversing this, it's in helping organize a resistance and counter movement, not in sending it money that i don't have.

and, on a moral level i don't think this responsibility falls to individual citizens, either, i think it is something that should be socialized and ultimately dealt with through the redirection of resources. the process of begging should never happen, because the society should be designed to ensure people have access to resources. i reject the idea of charity; i'm an anarchist, this is quite normal. and, any disdain about the situation needs to be directed to the economic system that allows such a situation to happen.

i am lucky to be born here. but, i'm not lucky enough to be able to start handing out cash to strangers.

sorry.