Before Ehrenreich, John R. Coleman's amazing _Diary of a Homeless Man_ was published in 1983. Coleman, President of Haverford College, went "undercover" as a homeless person in NYC, but, like Ehrenreich, retained an easy escape route back to (upper-) middle class safety in case of emergency.
Well, Coleman lasted a mere ten days before realizing he was in way over his head. He really was trying to live 24/7 on the streets, sleeping on grates, walking into temp agencies for work, etc. Still, he bailed out a lot earlier than planned. Yet his mere ten days' worth of experience provides a remarkable read:
After a few days in his homeless, er, "lifestyle," Coleman wrote:
"Already, I notice changes in me. [...] Force of habit still makes me look at my wrist every once in a while. But there's no watch there, and it wouldn't make any difference if there were. The thermometer has become much more important to me now than any time-piece could be. [...] A woman in an expensive fur coat, fur hat, and fur boots was preaching through a loudspeaker in Times Square: 'Your cars, your jewelry, your wealth won't get you into heaven without accepting Jesus. Until you call on God to cleanse yourself, you're ordering yourself to hell.' I went up to the woman and asked her if furs would help. She looked at me as if I needed counseling. Or maybe a bath.
[...]
"I made a quick, and probably grossly unfair, assessment of the hundreds of men I could see in the room [of the night-shelter for the homeless that Coleman had sought refuge in]. Judging them solely by appearance, alertness, and body movements, I decided that one-quarter of them were perfectly able to work; they, more likely than not, were among the warriors who helped us win the battle against inflation by the selfless act of joining the jobless ranks. Another quarter might be brought back in time into job-readiness by some counseling and some caring for them as individuals. But the other half seemed so ravaged by illness, addiction, and sheer neglect that I couldn't imagine them being anything but society's wards from here on out to -- one hopes --a peaceful end.
[...]
"The most frightening people here [at the shelter] are the many young, intensely angry blacks. Hatred pours out in all of their speech and some of their actions. I could spend a lot of time imagining how and why they became so completely angry -- but if I were the major, the counselor, or the man with the bullhorn, I wouldn't know how to divert them from that anger any more. Hundreds and hundreds of men here have been destroyed by alcohol or drugs. A smaller, but much more poignant, number are being destroyed by hate. Their loudest message -- and because their voices are so strong it is very loud indeed -- is 'Respect me, man.' The constant theme is that someone or some group is putting them down, stepping on them, asking them to conform to a code they don't accept, getting in their way, writing them off. So most of the fights begin over turf. A place in line. A corner to control. The have-nots scrapping with the have-nots.
[...]
"At about ten, a man [in the shelter] herded as many of us newcomers as would listen to him into a corner of the auditorium. There he delivered an abusive diatribe outlining the horror that lay ahead for our possessions and our bodies during the night in the shelter to come. [...] Only at midnight, when some other officials arrived, did we learn that this man had no standing whatsoever. He was just an underling who strutted for his time before any audience cowed enough to take what he dished out."
Obviously, the guy writing the above is writing from an Anglo/white perspective. But something of it reminds me of Emily Bronte's statement: "The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him, they crush those beneath them."
Orwell's _Down_And_Out_In_Paris_and_London_ is similar. I consider myself to be poor and from a working class background, but dislike identity politics. Yet, I've never felt offended, condescended to, or incensed personally by Ehrenreich's, Orwell's, Coleman's, (et. al.) reports back to their more secure audience.
-B.
John Thornton wrote:
"Of course it's a smear. There are some who are uncomfortable with the deceptive practice such a EB used. Terkel has done no such thing. To make the comparison you did is to suggest that there is some similar question with regards to Terkel's practices that does not exist. If making such unfounded implications isn't odious and a smear what is it?"