Luna Wang
Mr.Miller
SDCC 1
Essay #2
Always Give When Asked In “Charity Means You Don’t Pick and Choose,” Patricia O’Hara talks about many encounters with homeless people. She gives examples of people reacting with kindness, indifference, and contempt. At the end, she determines that people should consistently be kind regardless of circumstance. Patricia O’Hara frequently talks about the problem of how people who are doing well in life should not treat the homeless any different. People react to the homeless in different ways for a variety of reasons. Patricia O’Hara thinks that we should always given when asked, even if it means “weathering the sidelong glances of those who think we are a fool or worse”. First, some people are kind to the homeless for numerous reasons. Patricia O’Hara discusses in her article an incident in Washington D.C. where a homeless person approaches her and her son and they give him money, food, and kind words. She also mentions her unknown giving to clothes drives for the needy throwing money in the basket around Christmas time. A lot of other people’s reason for being nice to the homeless is because they feel they are obligated to. For me, I’m kind to the homeless because I feel like they need it. When there’s a homeless person on the side of the road and I have enough money to give I offer them a couple dollars. Sometimes I’m a little skeptic to hand a homeless person money because there are a lot of people pretend to be homeless just to get money.. Next, people have towards the homeless is violence. In Patricia O’Hara’s article quotes a man saying, “It’d be better if they got a job.” This is an example of that. Words can also hurt as well as violence. People take up beating up homeless as a hobby. In my hometown there was an incident that a man was died because of being beaten by some random person. But since the victim was homeless the case wasn’t thoroughly investigated so the person got away with it. People beat on the homeless because they look at as less human. Finally, The most common reaction is people tend to ignore the homeless. In Patricia O’Hara’s article, when she and her son visited New York City they met a thin, drugged-out young man approached them and asked them for change. She looked with his dirty clothes and unhealthy skin, and passed him by. Some people will do this as the same as her. For me, last year, on my home way, I met a woman who wore dirty clothes and had unhealthy skin, she asked me for some food because she was so hungry. I do not want to talk with her because of A foul odor was coming from her body and her dirty clothes. She looked at me in mute appeal and I ashamed what I thought. The reason why she wore dirty clothes, had healthy skin and smelt bed might because she have no money to wear new clothes and