POOR LANGUAGE

I am writing in response to Sam Pfeifle’s article, “Two candidates go homeless” (10/25). The language Pfeifle uses suggests that people who use services at the Preble Street Resource Center were privileged to be graced by the presence of our candidates who “actually” sat “with the homeless.” This was not the message our candidates were trying to send to their voters. Pfeifle writes that “all three candidates should be credited with making an effort to reach out to these people.” Why should they be credited, shouldn’t they be expected to reach out to all citizens? Is it not their job to make decisions based upon public opinion? Homeless citizens are part of that opinion. They are members of the community and do not deserve to be categorized into a separate group. Many of “these people” taught your children, built the cars you’re driving, constructed the building you are working in, and fought your wars.

Quick fact: “One out of every four homeless males who is sleeping in a doorway, alley, or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served our country” (National Coalition for Homeless Veterans)

Yet somewhere along the way they became, as Pfeifle said, “down on their luck,” a bit of an understatement. More likely they have suffered years of abuse, addiction, and/or mental-health issues combined with the fact that they have no family or social support networks.

Perhaps if our society made less distinctions between “us” (the housed) and “them” (the homeless) it would not be so difficult for people to escape these “unlucky situations.” Have you forgotten, Pfeifle, that our country was built upon values of equality and justice? I think we all have. Maybe it’s because it makes it easier for us to think of homelessness as the individual’s problem, but the reality is that it is everyone’s problem. Homelessness affects the quality of life for all of us. The health of one’s community has a direct effect on each citizen of that community. In the end poverty will break your spirit, just as much as it does those who are living in it. The only difference is that you won’t feel the pangs of hunger, the dirty looks, the fear of freezing to death, or just the longing to find a safe place where you are welcome. Where’s the justice in that?

Cathleen Prata

Portland

KICK THE HABIT

Most of our great political advances in human rights and civil rights and tolerance were made in the 1960s and 1970s, before anyone had ever heard of political correctness. Back then, politics was a lot more exciting. Activists were able to accomplish a lot, but still had the ability to laugh, poke fun at each other, and not take themselves so knee-jerky serious.

It wasn’t until the Reagan years that political correctness came into vogue among activists and especially Democratic activists. I’ve always believed that political correctness is desperately about form, not substance. It started out as an anti-anxiety medication to soothe the shock of witnessing the social backsliding and feeling of helplessness that the Reagan years engendered. If you lacked the power to act, you could at least control your talk. Unfortunately, political correctness, like most other self-medications, can have crippling side effects.

Political correctness is habitual. You keep talking the talk instead of walking the walk, even when you have the power to act. In April 1992, I was working on Jerry Brown’s primary campaign against Clinton in Manhattan. New York was loaded with homeless people. Many would find their way to our campaign offices. We would welcome them, sometimes buy them food and even boots and send them out to hand out flyers. In July 1992, I came back to New York as a Brown delegate from Maine to the National Democratic Convention. The first thing I noticed — no homeless people. Democratic Mayor Koch had actually had the police round them up and truck them out of the city so they wouldn’t be cluttering up our convention. Meanwhile, inside the convention hall, the future Clinton Administration was talking about not leaving anyone behind and so forth.

Political correctness is tunnel vision. You can no longer freely and passionately discuss the full spectrum of political thought in order to get to the substance of an issue. In the middle 1990s, I was fortunate enough to be able to go to law school at the University of Maine. I remember how I looked forward to joining what I thought would be a hotbed of political discourse — no such luck. Political correctness had gotten there before me. Many of my fellow students, in their twenties, who are some of the best hearted, organized, and intelligent of their generation, actually shied away from voicing strong opinions and arguments about current racial, religious, or social issues for fear of offending their peers.

Political correctness is a killjoy. It robs you of the guiltless ability to laugh at yourself, others, and things that may be irreverent but are just plain funny. A few years ago, I rented the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, which was made back in the 1970s and is happily free of political correctness and one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. When I showed it to my sons, who grew up in the politically correct 1980s and 1990s, they couldn’t believe that such a movie could ever have been made. They didn’t know whether it was okay to laugh or not — which is exactly what happened to Maine’s politically correct with Jonathan Carter’s casino ad. The ad stands on its own. Sure, different folks will interpret it and misinterpret it differently, but it’s substantively correct while poking fun at an opponent. Carter has been on the Maine political scene for the past 10 years and everyone who knows him and of him knows he is not a bigot including the “disappointed” Baldacci camp, the “offended” Mayor Geraghty, the Dirigo Alliance members, this newspaper, and Al Diamon, who seems to think the Carter campaign should be some kind of support group for politically correct advertising.

Kick the habit! Go out tonight and rent a video of Blazing Saddles, lay back, do a reality check, and learn how to laugh again. (If you can’t find Blazing Saddles, the currently playing Barbershop will be a good start.)

Joe Coffey

Windham