Washington, D.C., is easily one of the most surreal cities I’ve ever had the opportunity to visit. People go there to visit the monuments, to stroll through the endless sea of graves at Arlington or to rub a chip of moonrock returned from the Apollo missions of so long ago.

There is something magical about D.C., one of the few places left that still display prominent reminders of old Americana. Yet when I went, I was caught entirely off-guard by a similar experience to yours; there is something strangely disconcerting about watching grown men in Armani suits step over beggars in the streets.

When one sees tourists in Nikes with Canons in hand, briskly strolling past these poor people as fast as possible, it seems unavoidable that something in your heart will ring false. To hear the advice of your peers (or even parents): “Don’t give them money!” causes a disorientation between rationality and feeling. Seeing this, all of this, in our nation’s very capital, a city that represents and symbolizes everything that is America, gives one a rather shifted perspective on life.

If there really is a conflict in giving these starving people money, it has nothing to do with booze, drugs or work ethic. Its problem is not nested in a tangible form and is certainly not solvable. The problem with throwing alms to the poor is, quite simply, guilt. It’s the guilt one feels for realizing that this person’s life is the nightmare of when they will have their next meal and where they will go when it gets cold; a life that you can in no way relate to.

It’s the guilt one feels when they realize that the reason they are rich enough to afford $120 shoes and a half grand chip of glass mounted on their finger is because there are men like this, right here in front of you, who can’t afford a box of razors to shave. To know that this cold and tired person hates you not only for who you are but for what you represent, and yet has to stroll up to people like you on a daily basis, invert his pride and beg for money. To realize that they are for the most part justified in hating you, even though you can’t help wanting pretty clothes and a good education.

This is why people invent excuses to avoid the beggars. It’s so much easier to drop quarters into Santa’s can on your way into Target than to live up to your own guilt by giving it to a real human that can look right though your $100 glasses, deep into your soul, and make you feel bad for only giving a dollar. I honestly think that this is the conflict that you felt, Joanne, that this is the conflict that I felt, and that it was an enlightening thing for the both of us to have experienced.

Ryan McGinnis

Sophomore

English