Ah, a squatter squatting on a squatter.
Should be good!
I admit, with his comedic antics and Casey Casem lite voice, the initial impact of the spectacle got a few laughs out of me before it just faceplanted in a syrupy pool of its own sarcasm. And, naturally, whoever’s home it is should get it back. But, I feel like something’s missing from this story. Something behind the bathrobe and role playing and poking fun at whether this person is a man or a woman.
Thing is, most folk don’t resort to desperate measures when they’ve got all their survival needs met. She (I’mma go with “she” since that’s what the person identifies as) talks about how others were doing the same and encouraged her to follow suit. Is that okay? Breaking the rule ‘cause everyone else is? Stealing electricity you didn’t pay for?
I feel like there’s a yes and no answer here.
When you come from poverty (which I feel like we can say is probably happening a lot in Detroit), and don’t have the tools to do better, there’s no social context for you that dictates how to achieve that or that encourages it. It’s so easy for me to talk about how we’re all given the same opportunities, but I haven’t lived any other life other than my own. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up laying down hungry at night and waking to an alarm clock of gunshots. Or having to skip school and miss out on my education so I can work to make ends meet because a parent walked out on me or got sent to jail. Or how the whole social peer-pressure differs: while it exists for any kid in any environment – my biggest concerns were tantamount to Mean Girls compared to someone who wants to sling crack because of the Santa Clause like drug dealer of the neighborhood who always has money and fresh kicks. We are what we’re exposed to. And that’s not just “hard” to change later on in life because we’re lazy or stubborn. The habits we form in our formative years get ingrained so deeply that even after we realize they’re wrong – without something worthwhile to replace it – we just keep going back to it. That much ain’t just opinion. That’s science that smarter people than I have observed.
So, maybe that’s what this video’s missing. That if you want to change how lazy or ignorant people seem to be by taking an empty home nobody’s even using because they don’t have enough money (while the top wealthiest people in the world have so much of it that they have to send it away on a plane somewhere just like their children every summer), you’ve gotta provide an alternative.
I’m not sure what the perfect alternative is.
But somehow, I feel like it isn’t criminal finishing school #jail
Or sarcastic fluff pieces in fluffy robes.