What is disgusting about it? I don’t know anyone who would want to patronize a business that reeks of body odor and full of possibly mentally ill people.
We want private businesses to deal with the homeless and mentally ill, but I’d like to see all these white collar offices open themselves up so the homeless can come hang out.
I went to Seattle’s downtown public library once, beautiful building and I would have loved to explore, but I had to leave due to the overwhelming stench of all the homeless people.
Because it subjects real people to petty indignities for no good reason.
> I went to Seattle’s downtown public library once, beautiful building and I would have loved to explore, but I had to leave due to the overwhelming stench of all the homeless people.
Some people used to think just like that about black people, so they wrote laws and put up signs to exclude them [1]. The people at Joe & the Juice that the GGP describe are the same, but they just have to be more subtle about it.
Where I live, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (affluenza patients everywhere), there is a full-service laundrymat that offers free cleaning if you have a job interview. It's where I always take my dry cleaning.
Someone’s foul odor and possible mental illness affects others negatively, the color of someone’s skin does not. They are not comparable at all.
I’m all for helping people, it just shouldn’t be the job of private businesses, especially when it’s costing them other business. Let’s build facilities to treat the mentally ill and help addicts, let’s help the homeless who have hit hard times. Let’s not make it the job of hotels and cafes and libraries to host them and play the “discrimination, but not discrimination” game.
> Someone’s foul odor and possible mental illness affects others negatively, the color of someone’s skin does not. They are not comparable at all.
To be perfectly frank: that justification stinks of rationalization. I'm sure that the people who put up those signs I linked also felt that the presence of black customers would have affected them negatively.
> Let’s build facilities to treat the mentally ill and help addicts, let’s help the homeless who have hit hard times.
Those laws I mentioned previously had something to say about limiting black people to special facilities built especially for them, and excluding them from facilities built for whites [1].
> Let’s not make it the job of...libraries to host them and play the “discrimination, but not discrimination” game.
Are you serious? Libraries are public institutions.
Particles landing on someone’s olfactory nerves causing chemical reactions that inform the person that they should be repulsed is not the same as a person “feeling” that someone with different color skin negatively affects them.
Libraries are for learning, community events, tutoring, many things, but having homeless people stink up the place ruins it for everyone. I don’t understand how someone can argue that society should let a group of people ruin it for everyone. It’s the same as someone walking in with speakers and blasting loud music in a library.
> I don’t understand how someone can argue that society should let a group of people ruin it for everyone.
I don't understand how someone can make sweeping generalizations about an entire group of people, and argue that they should be excluded from "learning, community events, tutoring, many things" because of ignorant stereotyping
>It’s the same as someone walking in with speakers and blasting loud music in a library
It really isn't at all. People don't walk around blasting loud music because they don't have access to proper facilities and products to care for themselves at the same level that you are able to.
It's notable that you keep returning to strong body odor again and again. While I'm sure you can find an examples of homeless people like that, and it's likely that homeless people as a population have more body odor problems, superhuman body odor is hardly a universal quality of the homeless.
The root comment made no mention of body odor, let alone body odor so bad that it would affect other customers. It also referenced a region where the rent is so damn high that people have been driven out of stable housing and are forced to live in campers on the street [1]. It only described a situation were a business was trying to keep "those people" out.
It seems pretty clear to me that you're engaging in negative stereotyping to justify your prejudices. Thank you for the education, it's rare in my life that I see such attitudes so openly displayed.
>reeks of body odor and full of possibly mentally ill people
Why are you repeatedly implying that homeless people reek of body odor and are mentally ill when the original comment made no mention of either? It sounds a lot like the kind of excuses made about black people, jewish people, and other groups that have been stereotyped and dehumanized in order to justify poor treatment and cruelty. There are plenty of homeless people that are not mentally ill, and strive to maintain their hygiene despite not having access to the same facilities products that people take for granted. People seem to be able to get away with talking extremely poorly about homeless people, and yet if you replaced homeless with a particular race/religious group/etc you would likely be called a bigot. It sounds like you've never experienced homelessness or had family/friends that have been homeless, and your comments are ignorant and show a complete lack of empathy.
We want private businesses to deal with the homeless and mentally ill, but I’d like to see all these white collar offices open themselves up so the homeless can come hang out.
I went to Seattle’s downtown public library once, beautiful building and I would have loved to explore, but I had to leave due to the overwhelming stench of all the homeless people.