Much good has come of my tenure here at My Brother’s Keeper. The few colleagues that I have are delightful, and working alongside them has helped mitigate the stress of volunteering at a homeless shelter in such a city as Flint. It also helps, of course, that we’re all from here, which is the source of our unfeigned rapport.

I can honestly say that nothing particularly staggering, within the organization itself, has (as of yet) transpired—or rather, I should say, nothing that outright defied my expectations has yet happened. In fact, nothing uncomfortably surprising has happened during any of my involvement in any of the areas of the organization where one might think such things would happen: not working with the parolees of the transitional house, not with the clients of the emergency shelter, and especially not the regular volunteer quasi-staff of the lunch program (i.e. soup kitchen). The aforementioned have all been the consolation of my experience, especially a few of the residents of the transitional house. I’ve been placed in a privileged position to learn about issues with which I had been only vaguely acquainted, and would have remained so if it weren’t for my enlistment in the Americorps. And for that, I am immensely grateful.

However, the bane of my experience mostly derives from some of my involvement with some of the volunteers themselves. [Let me emphasize—some!]. I was agitated, e.g., by the gentleman who thundered his colossal diesel truck into our parking lot one Saturday—agitated, not by the truck itself, nor even by the obnoxiously emphatic bumper sticker on the rear window stating, peremptorily, “Extremely right-wing.” Rather, what agitated me were his statements, as he walked in the side entrance, carrying a cardboard bookshelf, about the city in which our shelter is located, namely, Flint. He said—roughly quoting here—“I can’t believe what these people have done with this place after so much has been given to them,” as he desperately sought an affirmation from his discernibly blushing companion. By “this place” (let’s not inquire into what he meant by “these people”) he meant not the shelter itself—though perhaps he was withholding his judgments in that regard—but the city. He then proceeded to set a stack of gun and rifle magazines on the shelf of the room his church had adopted. I promptly removed them. [Explanatory side note: with the assistance of the DMVA, we’ve been slowly and painstakingly developing a program for homeless veterans, schedule to commence imminently. This program involves an adopt-a-room option, much like the State’s “adopt-a-highway” program but with people and rooms,  where groups or individuals can…well…adopt a room and the person(s) residing therein.]

Well clearly, this gentleman failed to comprehend how little has in fact been done, and how little is being done, for the city of Flint. Alas, Flint is not Detroit, and helping Flint is not quite as glamorous as helping Detroit. We don’t, after all, get the benevolent hipster population Detroit gets; and let’s just say gentrification hasn’t become a problem yet, and probably won’t ever even be one. Either way, his statements (not all of which are being quoted) were inaccurate and, of course, personally offensive. It displayed certain of his assumptions quite perspicuously, which might have also been manifest in other of the aforementioned facts. 

Now, we here at MBK do not discriminate according to political or, even, social views—who knows what mine even are! Nor did we in this case. The volunteers must be treated with the same dignity, compassion and respect that we demand, uncompromisingly, be extended to the homeless population of our city and county. Though such treatment of volunteers most often comes with ease, occasionally one must summon the nobler parts of one’s soul in order to maintain such treatment towards certain others. But I’ve learned that such equitable and unconditional treatment of people requires a certain blindness to the particular defects of the individuals involved. This has assured me that others must have in the past exhibited such blindness toward my own particular defects. Nevertheless, I’ve learned, through the dismay of a few unfortunate encounters, that in this business one can be neither self-righteous, i.e. one cannot regard their own character or personality as without defect, nor intolerant, i.e. one cannot even regard—or rather, entertain, whether privately or publicly (blogs excluded!)—the defects of others. But as Nietzsche once wrote (since we’re quoting him already), “Many a peacock hides its feathers—and calls that its pride” [BGE 4.73a] So I must remain particularly wary that I’m not intolerant in my tolerance, that is, that I don’t act intolerantly toward some in the name of my “tolerance” for others.