capitalism<\/a>.<\/h4>\nYou have the right to use your talents to pursue making money, and then that money is YOURS; no matter how dire the situation is for someone else, no matter how insignificant giving a bit of it away might be, you don’t give it up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSome people are too greedy to give it up. Others, and perhaps many of the people on Neely’s train, are just following a norm. They wouldn’t mind giving up some money if they really thought about it. But they don’t because it would look weird \u2013 it’s a conformity issue.<\/span><\/p>\nIf you are a good person, which most people are, and you have enough money, there is no way you pass someone who is desperate on the street without giving them money unless you have justified it in your mind.<\/span><\/p>\nThe idea that all men and women are created equal is part of our societal ideology in this country. The problem is the belief that we are created equal, but that if you end up in a position where you’re begging, you’re somehow less than equal.<\/span><\/p>\nThat is how not giving up money is justified. That is how the murder of Jordan Neely is justified.<\/h4>\n
How many times do we have to write it here: participating in “traditional capitalistic forms of grind,” as National Homelessness Law Center Board Member Khadijah Williams\u00a0<\/span>put it<\/span><\/a>, does not make you a better person than someone who doesn’t. You are no more kind or loving or even more talented. (Talent is universal \u2013 it’s just that not all of our talents align with a path leading to payment in our current society.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n