There is an interaction that sits in my head so deeply that I cannot shake it. Homeless, or just part of the block? Same shit, same class of person to the people running the business. To the people employed with protecting it.
Malcolm X shirt. He approaches me alone, in the parking lot. A few days before I had to tell other homeless people, or are they homeless? Do they live on the block? Don’t think so much. Outside of the fence? Homeless. Inside of the fence? Valid.
He came up to me and asked me what the space was all about, and I explained it as plainly as I could: I sell tacos, there’s a tea cafe inside, and the venue is used on the weekends for various punk events.
He gets into my face. Clearly to g-check me, to let me know that this is in fact his neighborhood, his block, and I am a guest. Fair enough, it’s, as Gucci Mane said, the truth. Safe space.
Something tells me in that moment that that rhetoric isn’t more meaningful than the opinions of the man in the Malcolm X hoodie. His Malcolm X shirt wasn’t an accident. It was a direct challenge to my position. It said: “You know what this is. I know what this is. Let’s not pretend.”
I’ve read Malcolm X. I get compared to Malcolm X. I am, by most metrics, a white dude. I am telling this man and people like him, regardless of the community pantry, regardless of what I stand for, that he is not welcome here, be it by body language or by spoken word.
In this moment, I knew that contradictions could never be resolved. If this man became a daily or twice-weekly user of our pantry? He’d be banned before he got a chance to know everyone, and that everyone? Suspicion the whole time.
How could I possibly sit in a minor position of power, only serving this business that claims to be this welcoming space, while telling this man he can’t be here, for what is ultimately the color of his skin and his perceived class position?
I never liked telling "the homeless" to fuck off, and I never liked the position I was forced to play in the space, this masculine protector shit. Protecting what? Capital.
Never again. I have never felt so ashamed. So much like a cop. The ban I received, it only makes me feel that much more connected to that man in the Malcolm X hoodie. It has become inescapable to me that the contradictions between small businesses and revolutionaries cannot be squared, after all it was small businesses that pushed so strongly for "Whites Only" rules. It was the small time pool operator that poured bleach in the pools when black people swam, who chose to turn those gathering places into parking lots when they realized who would gather there.
I have no regrets, in that moment I thought that operating in that way would benefit the space. It's a safe space so it's good to protect it. Safe from what? Fascists? There are people with real power at the venue who support or at least admire fascism, racism, and bigotry. For the queer? There was no way of me knowing if this man was queer or not.
Safe space for profit. Simple as.