Saturday, March 1, 2008

TJ Walkup Cartoons, the Homeless have every right to public space too!


Can you imagine that Bank of the West actually took a bench back after it was gifted to the public? Because people who were not "commercial enough" were sitting on it. That is the way the story that inspired this illustration goes. So some older folks , cute older folks sat at this bench "for years". So a sense of entitlement over the "public" space grew and they must have thought of it as theirs. Wrong. Then homeless also used the public space (tends to make homelessness visible), some one didn't like that because it is much easier to sweep the poor off the street than face poverty. Well when we look at this situation fairly we have to understand that although it is public space, not all people are given the same treatment in our society. Ok I love mature people, they usually have such wisdom and such wonderful experience to report and offer to their fellow man, this time they come off looking insensitive. If we are gonna work together in this world we have to get together. Bank of the West was the real culprit here. They need to serve the community better. Bring back the bench they took!