teach Mankind to fish
Being Invisible
By Wannetta Hartman
AUGUST 2, 2017
Walking the streets with nowhere to go
until soles are worn and bare.
Avoiding sideways glances and stares.
“Outcast, vagrant, misfit, and crazy”
Words hurled like a sledgehammer
fly dangerously through the air.
Hitting the target where it hurts
no place to run or no one to care.
Longing to flee threatening thoughts,
avoiding nightmares by staying awake.
Wakeful, alert, fearful, and tired,
feeling the enemy closing in.
Always lurking in the shadows,
waiting to attack and overcome.
Where does a homeless person belong?
In a land of peace and harmony.
An illusion that cannot be found.
How visible are the Homeless?
Gloria Westfall, the main character in my novel, Teach a Man to Fish, becomes homeless to avoid someone she calls The Hunter who is on her mind both day and night. This poem about Gloria’s situation explains the anxiety and fear felt by homeless people who believe everyone stares and judges them for their inability to maintain a permanent residence. Like many homeless people, Gloria tries to be invisible to avoid the guilt and shame felt by those without a home.
How visible are the homeless? How visible do they want to be?
According to “The Economist” in an online article written on Feb 22nd, 2016, By E.W. entitled: How Many Homeless People Are There in America?, it is difficult to tell how many people sleep on the streets because many of the city people try to ignore and not see the homeless people they encounter. A quote from the article says that “Donald Trump once famously insisted that his security guards clear all tramps and panhandlers from the pavement in front of Trump Tower.”
In an experiment called Make Them Visible, in New York City in 2014 by the NYC Rescue Mission (a shelter), participants were filmed walking past relatives disguised as homeless people. The disguised relatives sitting on the streets went unnoticed. “We don’t look at them. We don’t take a second notice,” said the public relations director for the organization.
Every two years there is s survey called “point-in-time” mandated by the federal government for American cities to take note of their homeless populations. On a given night, volunteers collect data of those living without shelter. That data is then tallied with the number of shelter beds. This information helps determine the success of the shelters and need for more in the coming year, depending upon the numbers. In 2014, 1.49 million people used the shelters and almost 600,000 were without shelter, either sleeping on the street, in cars, and other exposed areas.
This flawed measure has its limits because it is conducted in January when people seek
temporary shelter with friends and family or hide where volunteers can’t find them. A better method has not been found, leaving the homeless invisible even in data and census records that seek to make them visible. The article concludes. “If you don’t have an accurate read of the problem, you can’t accurately identify solutions.”
In my book, Gloria Westfall wants to be invisible to avoid being found by the one who hunts her with intent to do harm. Many of the homeless have those same fears whether real or imagined. One thing is clear, they will remain invisible to those who do not want to see them including family. A reality that her homeless friend Sam Wassem experiences in my novel.
Teach Mankind blogs will contain various forms of writings to expose feelings experienced by those who are rejected by a society that chooses not to see them or to abuse them. The hope is that this website might provide hope and reason to come together to fight for the rights of those who are oppressed because of bias and prejudice formed over many years of training.
Belonging: The Elusive Dream Content
Wannetta Hartman
AUGUST 1, 2017
Upon completion of my novel entitled Teach a Man to Fish. I am faced with little experience of how to get this book into the hands of avid readers who care about the world where various groups of people no longer feel they belong.
How do I market my unpublished book? In a world where famous writers dominate the market and people with experience know the “ropes” or passage into the writing field, how can an unknown like me belong to that writer’s world? Upon finishing my book, I have more questions than I do answers. However, my novel carries a message for those who feel they do not belong to any world and who are the forgotten, as well as, those who care about loved ones who are lost and all alone.
Gloria Westfall, my main character, found herself running from a life that others were envious of because they did not know its true nature. She chose a small southern town in Georgia to become homeless and forgotten. As a result, she found herself alone and lonely. She hoped to escape the one person who haunted her every waking moment and occupied her every dream.
When I created the main character, I didn’t know her very well. Stephen King says “Let your characters do the talking. Give them room to develop themselves.”
He was right. I knew little about her situation or the choices she would make when faced with homelessness and the need to survive. I put together all the knowledge I had of a homeless person’s life (which was little) and infused the lives of people I have seen and yes, people I have known, to prepare her for her journey into the unknown.
I found writing a novel is like a puzzle. The pieces consist of the lives and experiences our minds have collected over time. With a touch of empathy, compassion, and imagination it becomes real. Sources are plentiful through media and easily accessed by the technology of today. The pieces are scattered from here to all corners of the world where stories and lives of real individuals can be melded to form characters who are believable and desperate to belong and can eventually feel accepted and free.