Homelessness in the seat of power, during and after the Age of Obama

I remember a mere three months after the Changeling's "selection" and their move into the Big House, my favorite homeless, homeless advocate, Eric Sheptock called me excitedly saying that Michelle Obama had come to Miriam's Kitchen in DC to feed the homeless.

It was his hope the "selection," coupled with her show of some interest in homelessness (vis-à-vis her one-day visit to the soup-kitchen) -- that the DC government apparatchiks (former mayor, Adrian Fenty in particular) would "turn to" (Navy slang for "Get to work!") regarding the homeless.  I didn't share his enthusiasm and said so.

Then, two months later, a funny thing happened from deus ex machina to actual Trojan Horse-dom regarding the Changeling.  According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness:

Today, May 7, President Obama released his budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2010. The budget included funding proposals for housing and homeless programs....Highlights of the funding for homeless programs include:
• $1.8 billion for McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants, an increase of $117 million over FY 2009;
•$46.3 billion for HUD programs, an 11 percent increase;
•$1 billion for a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund;
•$68 million for the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program, an $8 million increase over the FY 2009 level;
•$19 million for a new DC Housing First Initiative to provide supportive housing to homeless individuals and families;
•$26 million for a pilot program to prevent homelessness for veterans.

That's a lot of damn money, no??!!

Yet, when I read this piece at OpEdNews on Election Day -- 90-year-old man, two pastors cited for feeding homeless in Florida, I immediately thought about two things:  this visual from Truthdig's, 'Somebody Called the Cops on Jesus' (Audio) story earlier this year...

The Rev. David Buck sits next to the Jesus the Homeless statue that was installed in front of his church, St. Alban's Episcopal, in Davidson, N.C.

...and this more recent post in early October from Eric, which he graciously allowed me to repost:

Job Discrimination Against the Homeless: Shirley Contracting and DC's First-Source Law

It's been said by social justice advocates and activists that, “There are 20 years that don't make a day; and then, there's that day that makes 20 years”. I think I just had my day that makes 20 years on October 3rd, 2014. I attended a hearing at Washington, DC's City Hall (The John A. Wilson Building). It was about the 41% cut to TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) that went into effect on October 1st, 2014. I didn't plan to testify, only to observe. However, as I heard various homeless or poor mothers and one single woman from the non-profit community testify, the gears began turning and I gave into tempation.

A woman on the previous four-person panel set things off when she shifted from talking about the increased hardships that she and her child will endure as a result of the near-half reduction in public benefits to talking about how she doesn't believe that city officials really want to end homelessness or poverty. She even talked about how the system that creates or deepens people's poverty then blames those people for their poverty and was one of at least two mothers who talked about how more poor people will commit crimes of survival as their public benefits are cut. They went on to mention the prison-industrial complex and how that, as people commit crimes of survival, prisons are being built and expanded and police are at the ready to arrest the poor and throw them in jail where money can be made off of them.

I shared the testimony table with three mothers. Naila (nah – EE – lah) is still relatively new to advocacy. Other long-term advocates and I have been offering our support to get her started. She sat to my right. Naila was the first person on our panel to speak. She told of homeless parents being intimidated by staff for speaking out about shelter conditions and of how the homeless families at the Quality Inn, courtesy of DC Government, had received notices of eviction with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. I fleshed out what the woman on the previous panel said by giving some very specific examples of systemic failures that add up to poor people being gentrified out of the city or that make their lives harder. After all, I've dealt with DC Government for eight years and some change. I know about their major SNAFU's since June 2006 first-hand and have heard about others that occurred prior to my becoming a homeless advocate. A woman who shares my mother's name and put herself through professional schooling while homeless sat to my left. A woman who suffers from Dyslexia but has three gifted children sat to the right of Naila who broke into tears as she heard the mother of three speak. I held and comforted her.

Councilman Jim Graham was so impressed with the testimonies of our panel that he strongly advised us to organize for power. Immediately after our panel was finished, the four of us stood, exchanged hugs (which is uncommon at a hearing) and walked into the hall to exchange contact info and plan when we would meet to organize. (That will happen on Monday, October 6th at 1 PM at the MLK, Jr. Library in Room A-9.) I was impressed by the fluidity of our collective testimonies even though we hadn't collaborated on them. I was also impressed by the critique of the capitalist system that took place during the hearing. It was reminiscent of the hearing a day earlier before the same councilman concerning the future of the CCNV Shelter. During that hearing a man who is new to advocacy talked mainly about the hurtful effects of the capitalist system and the fact that much of what city officials claim to do out of concern for homeless people is just a facade. While myself and other advocates have known these things for years, it is unusual for a person who is testifying to exit the topic of the hearing and give a general critique of the system; and, it is almost unheard of to have several people's testimonies so unintentionally and coincidentally build the case for an indictment against the same.

During my testimony I mentioned the fact that there weren't many homeless families present at a hearing that directly affects them; because, they don't have enough money to ride the transit system – that the problem we were there to discuss was self-compounding insomuch as the decreased funds decrease the ability of the poor to attend events where they should be speaking out about their plight. I also said that,though it's rather pie-in-the-sky, maybe we should approach the transit authority about assisting homeless families by giving them free rides or reduced fares, especially when attending such a meeting. Councilman Graham would later say that he can help with transportation. I also mentioned the fact that,with homeless families at the Quality Inn having been told to leave with nowhere to go and no one to talk to about their plight, we were returning to the atrocities of the winter of 2010-11.

During that winter, homeless mothers were turned away from an over-crowded shelter with their infants and toddlers in tow and given tokens to ride the bus all night. (The buses stop between 2 and 5 AM.) One particular boy who was born on February 10th spent his first month of life homeless as his mother slept with him in her storage unit, the Greyhound station and the stairwell of an unsecured apartment building. I too mentioned the insufficient political will to end homelessness, as I had the day before. At both hearings I mentioned Shirley Contracting which has begun a large 10-year building project right across the road from the shelter and only made a token effort to hire homeless people. I'm left to wonder if they've made any more of an effort to hire other Washingtonians.

I left the hearing at about 1:20 PM to go to an interview with an American University student who wanted to know about the phenomenon whereby homeless people are made to feelinvisible. Along with one other man, I told her about how the general public often tries not to notice a homeless person. I told her of how homeless parents often sleep in the bushes of various parks for fear that if they apply for shelter, the shelter is full and they are honest about not having anywhere to sleep indoors, then theirchildren will be taken away. This causes homeless parents to want to become “invisible”. I also told her about FEMA camps that are being erected in various cities, ostensibly in preparation for a disaster, and are being used as homeless shelters where a homeless person must go and is not allowed to leave without an escort in a van.

Then it was on to the radio station where I was one of three people on an hour-long show that centered around the book by my good friend, former Cleveland resident and current American University professor Dan Kerr called “DerelictParadise”. His book addresses poverty pimping from an academic standpoint. It shows the connection between the cheap labor afforded by day labor halls, the race to the bottom in terms of wages and the increase in homelessness since 1945. Dan, a Caucasian, beat me to the punch by being the first to mention that “urban renewal” is actually”negro removal”. (I really WAS getting ready to say that in my next comment when he said it. Great minds think alike.) It was here at WPFW 89.3 FM during the show with Garland Nixon from 6 to 7PM on October 3rd, 2014 that I mentioned the indictment of Shirley Contracting for the third time in two days (all three times having been taped and made available in the public domain.) The indictment is as follows:

In late August or early September 2014 Shirley Contracting which is a subsidiary of Clark Construction began work on a 10-year project near the 200 block of E Street NW in Washington, DC. There is a shelter building which holds up to 1,350 of the city's 8,000+ homeless people which is located diagonally across the road on the southeast corner of the same intersection. It contains three separate shelters, a clinic, a drug program and a kitchen that feeds 5,000 poor people per day and is collectively known as the Federal City Shelter. The CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) is one of those shelters in the building with 950 of the beds. There are probably 300 people in that building who are fully capable of doing construction labor. There may be upwards of 100 who have skills in the construction trades.

Washington, DC has what are called “First Source Laws” which mandate that employers make a good-faith effort to ensure that at least 51% of their employees are DC residents. After they make a good-faith effort to hire DC residents, they are allowed to hire people from outside of DC. The following amounts to what I suspect was a token effort to hire DC residents and one which uses homeless people in ways that the homeless might not be aware.

I was told by a man who, along with his co-workers, comes from the Academy of Sciences during his lunch break to help homeless people write resumes and apply on-line for jobs that Shirley Contracting had indeed contacted the shelter administration to inform them that the company was hiring. This friend had been led to believe that the company wanted to hire a large number of people from the shelter. The shelter administration did not make it their business to convey this information to all residents, though I have no complaint about the man who told me.

I went to the company's website, sent them a message expressing my desire to discuss them hiring homeless people, made a flier with their contact info along with what I'd been told and posted those fliers at the shelter. On or around September 10th I called Shirley Contracting. I was put through to a certain Carrie Carr-Maina (703-550-1127) and explained my understanding of the matter. She seemed rather friendly, for what that's worth to you. (She works in HR.) She said that, while she doesn't know who from her company contacted the shelter, she thinks that they might have simply told the shelter that Shirley is hiring but doubts that they stated a desire to hire any homeless people. She emphasized that anyone may apply. She explained that the application can be done on-line or in person at the office in Lorton Virginia which is beyond where the transit system goes and considerably difficult to get to – especially if you are a homeless person of limited means. (It stands to reason that the interview would be in Lorton even if one were to apply on-line.) Ms. Carr-Maina suggested getting a van and bringing 10 people out to apply in Lorton. She also told me that Shirley Contracting would be participating in a job fair at the Washington Convention Center on September 24th.

On September 23rd I called Carrie Carr-Maina to confirm that she would be at the job fair the next day. She said she would but then asked me if I'd seen her e-mail. I hadn't. She then proceeded to tell me that I was publishing bad information about Shirley Contracting that included the idea that the companywould transport homeless people to Lorton for the interview. I asked her when she sent it and she said the 15th. I thought that a mentally ill homeless advocate whom I know may have made his own version of my flier and sent it out in the name of SHARC, the advocate group that I chaired beginning at the group's inception in April 2011. When I went back and read the e-mail, it had a faxed copy of my flier and a company flier along with a message from Carrie about the large amount of human resources that were wasted dealing with people who were calling in based on bad information. My flier said nothing about the company having offered to ride homeless people to the office in Lorton.

During this conversation I asked her about the claim by a certain homeless man that Shirley Conracting was hiring through the Local 657 labor union for construction and general labor. She said, “No”. She also told me that many other Shirley jobs were coming to a close and that those workers would be transferred to the site near the shelter, leaving very few jobs for the homeless to obtain.

I received a text from a different number (702-358-0411) on September 23rd which said that the job fair was at the Doubletree Hotel in Crystal City. The number belongs to what appears to be an identity protection firm in Las Vegas named “Level 3 VoIP”. I'm left to wonder why anybody from Las Vegas is contacting me, with me having no connections there. I didn't actually see the text until the morning of the 24th. I'd hung fliers directing people to the Washington Convention days earlier. I now had to write what I thought was the proper address on the fliers by hand. But it was too late. Some people had already made their way to the Convention Center.

I wrote this entire experience off as water under the bridge and decided that I would still do all that I could to connect homeless people to the jobs across the street from the shelter. I printed the company flier that Carrie had sent me, which had very scant information about the company's job offerings. Then I went to the hearing about the shelter's future on October 2nd. During my testimony, I mentioned the irony of it being so hard for homeless people to get the job across the street. I highlighted that there was an affordable housing issue on one side of the road and a living-wage issue on the other side of the road. What I would hear another man testify about moments later would cause the plot to thicken.

The last man to testify was new to advocacy. He made an indictment of the system as a whole and talked about how DC is being given to the wealthy and the well-to-do. Then he mentioned his experience dealing with Shirley Contracting. He'd initially been told that the job fair was in Crystal City. He claims that it actually took place in Pentagon City. At that moment I realized that I wasn't the only one to be given the run-around by Shirley Contracting and that it wasn't a matter of my own carelessness. I made sure to mention my updated assessment at the October 3rd hearing and during my October 3rd broadcast.

I've brought this matter up during several of my in-person conversations (as opposed to radio broadcasts). My friends and associates agree with me that, if Shirley has a project which I've been told will net them $2.8 billion and which will last for 10 years, they should have to establish a DC office or a mere office trailer on the job site where Washingtonians can apply and interview. We also agree that Shirley just used the homeless. Irrespective of their homeless status, the 1,350 people at the Federal City Shelter are DC residents. Shirley could, in theory, call the shelter director to say that they are hiring and then put that down as having reached out to over 1,000 DC residents about prospective employment with the company. Not only would it bring them closer to reaching the bare minimum of DC residents so as to justify them looking outside of the city for employees, in accordance with the First Source Laws. It might also bring them closer to satisfying some federal law that mandates that they reach out to depressed communities and other disadvantaged groups – such as “Equality Opportunity Laws”.

We can't let this token effort pass as a satisfaction of either law. Let's strengthen either law so as to require Shirley Contracting to establish a DC-based employment office and to visit the shelter and talk directly to groups of prospective employees at the shelter across the road. Let's take it a step further by strictly defining the real employment opportunities that they must offer and the reasonable accommodations that they must make to enable homeless people to obtain employment at the site across the road. They should also have to help them make it through until their first check – namely with cash advances against their hours worked. They should have to do this last thing for at least two weeks and, at most, five or six weeks. I've picked a fight with Shirley. Who will join that fight?????

Unfortunately Eric, I doubt there are many (if any) residents in the now, nearly completely gentrified (read "bleached," thanks to Jefe at an Abagond post some time ago), decidedly unaffordable District of Columbia -- including the newly "selected" mayor, Muriel Bowser who will likely join that fight. {smdh}

Now, if the afore-mentioned instances are not excellent enough reminders of how so totally un-Christlike, these self-professed Christians, living in and running this so-called Christian nation really are, I don't know what else you need.  Not only is homelessness criminalized (pretty much everywhere the gentrifiers slide in), they're also involved in all sorts of schemes to totally crush people's spirit -- and keep them homeless!!!  I just gotta ask all you God-fearin', Scripture-spoutin',  saved hypocrites two things:  Is this what Jesus would do and -- what the hell happened to all that money??!!

Wake the hell up Family!  After the current  mid-terms, where Republicans have gained total control of an already, do-nothing' Congress, it's not going to get any better for humanity in this country!  Corporations as people and how much your "brand" is worth, is unfortunately, the order of the day -- unless of course, we all "join that fight."

Please check out Eric's blog on homelessness in the seat of power in these alleged United States of America at: Tick Tock Sheptock.

Related:
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- 2 Friends Turned A Van Into A Laundromat So Homeless People Can Wash Their Clothes
- It is now illegal to distribute food to homeless people in 21 cities
- Can a ‘Homeless Bill of Rights’ End the Criminalization of LA’s Most Vulnerable Residents?
- From Super Bowl Champion to Homeless Retiree

My favorite homeless, homeless advocate, Eric Sheptock -- still on the job!

The year I met Eric Sheptock, I was working on my Masters in Journalism at Georgetown.  And though I withdrew after a year for personal reasons, the time I spent with Eric and his friends taught me way more than the Jesuits ever could.

I am so proud of his man!  He's smart, driven and committed to ensuring the homeless, who live in the shadow of the White House and Congress -- are treated with dignity and respect and, that they  receive equitable treatment in their search for some degree of agency in their own lives.

Listen, while he lays out the latest insult to that very agency and self-determination:



When I graduated from my Alabama HBCU, I moved to DC during the time that Mitch Snyder, the other homeless, homeless advocate, to whom Eric referred above, negotiated the CCNV deal (District residents were fighting "Taxation without Representation" then too!  Funny how nothing's changed but the faces of the struggle in 35 years right?).  I thought it odd then that, in our nation's capital, so many people were fighting just to have a decent place to stay.  I was young and dumb then.  I don't find it odd anymore.

Please go here if you believe there should be even a modicum of true change you can believe in and sign Eric's petition, Family.  Help DC's homeless population have a seat at the table in deciding their own fate. Remember, there but for the grace...

To Catholic Charities: "What Would Jesus Do?"

Last month, I talked to my friend Eric Sheptock, the homeless - homeless advocate whose story I began to tell back in April.  After catching up, we talked about DC's same-sex marriage amendment that passed its second vote in the DC Council just two days ago.  I'd asked his permission to repost his literal, "Man on the Street" perspectives on the amendment, Catholic Charities, homelessness and the politics of it all in DC.  But procrastinator that I am - I didn't keep my word (Sorry Eric!).

Now that the 30-day clock is ticking for Congress to sign-off on the amendment and make it law - or not, I thought I'd share a little history from someone who will be personally affected if Catholic Charities decides NOT to do what Jesus would.

~#~

Catholic Charities Pimps DC Council Again, This Time Over Gay Marriage
By Erick Sheptock
(Posted November 13, 2009)  

What do a Catholic Charities homeless shelter and gay marriage have in common? Some would venture to guess that gay men want the right to identify as women and sleep in female shelters and that butch lesbians want the right to sleep in male shelters. That would be a very well-informed guess. I've witnessed gay men checking into female shelters, though I've yet to see a butch lesbian check into a male shelter. Such rights exist in DC homeless shelters already.

However, there is a new and strange twist (no pun intended) to the fight for gay rights. I received the news over dinner last night (before it even hit the airwaves) that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC is considering the possibility of not doing any more business with the city of Washington if the gay marriage bill is passed. Being that the news has hit the airwaves at this point and you can get the story by going on-line, I'll take some time to give you a little of the background on relations between Catholic Charities and DC Government as well as the low-down on the mayor -- the parts of the story that the media won't tell you.

In March I did a blog post about several shelters having been threatened. (See below where I've re-posted it.) It was believed by the homeless community at that time that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty wanted to close ALL DC homeless shelters before leaving office in January of 2011. Then, the mayor was heard suggesting that homeless people who are not from DC go back to where they came from. (You can read about that in my September post entitled: "DC Mayor Tries To Rid City of Homeless".) In lieu of all of the reasons that the mayor has given the homeless to think that he wants them to just get out of town, it behooves the mayor to proactively prove otherwise. No matter how many layers of authority and contracts lie between the mayor and those who actually close the shelters, the mayor will still be implicated in the closure. He is still ultimately responsible. It is, therefore, in Mayor Fenty's best interest to actively prevent any shelter closures, especially at this time of year. He must use every weapon in his arsenal to come to the rescue of DC's homeless. Failure is not an option. Even if Catholic Charities shuts down all city operations, the mayor will be who everyone looks to for answers.

Catholic Charities is a different story altogether. Some believe that Catholic Charities is in dire straights and is using the gay marriage bill to suck more money out of the city. But before I explain the correlation between the gay marriage bill and the homeless shelters, I'll explain how Catholic charities likes to pimp the city.

The news came out on September 28th of this year that $12 million would be slashed from DC Government's Homeless Services budget. All homeless service providers were, in turn, ordered to cut 30% from their budget for FY 2010. Catholic Charities representatives attended a hearing in front of DC Councilman Tommy Wells on October 5th and stated that they could not continue to operate with one-third of their budget having been slashed. They threatened to shut down all of their city shelters, which would have resulted in the loss of about 2,000 shelter beds. The city scrambled to find the funds to keep the shelters open. Within 3 days the mayor found $11 million and the shelters were saved. He thereby averted a lot of major lawsuits due to hypothermia deaths.

However, this showed Catholic Charities that they are in a position to do a power play on the city. If this latest development is any indication, Catholic Charities is not going to let the city forget that they -- and not the city government -- hold the cards when it comes to social services in the city. When I referred to Catholic Charities as having pimped the city during conversations in October, it was blown off as being nothing but hype. In the articles about this latest move, various council members have weighed in on this issue of being pimped by Catholic Charities. It's too obvious to ignore at this point. I told you so.

The story goes like this:

The DC Council has been working on a gay marriage bill, which they expect to pass next month. While the bill makes certain exemptions for religious organizations, it doesn't make exemptions for businesses. Churches don't have to perform gay marriages or allow their space to be used for gay marriages. However, businesses are not allowed to discriminate against gays in any way, shape, form or fashion. They must serve gay patrons and must extend employee benefits to the gay partners of their employees. Catholic Charities, being a non-profit, is an uncanny marriage of the two -- a church and a business. They seek to assert their religious beliefs as reasons for them not to have to abide by the gay marriage bill as it pertains to businesses. They also claim that the increased cost of employee benefits justifies them opting out of city contracts due to the increased cost of those benefits having not been figured into the contracts at the time of the signing. Catholic charities is seriously considering not doing business with the city any more. If they were to make good on this threat, thousands of DC's most vulnerable citizens would suffer. That makes it rather selfish of Catholic charities to opt out of their city contracts. (As a quick aside, I must say that I told the person who first informed me of this situation with Catholic Charities that I feel obligated to remain a homeless advocate, in spite of me not getting paid for it, and that my reason is that I'd be letting a lot of people who look up to me down if I were to quit now.)

Let's also bear in mind that Catholic Charities receives city funding. This alone obligates them to lay aside any religious beliefs and to continue to deliver services -- secularly, as a non-profit and not as a church. My statement is not without precedent, that precedent having been set in the Central Union Mission (CUM) case. Central Union Mission sought to move to the historic and city-owned Gales School. With CUM being Christian-based, they were told that they could not acquire the Gales School unless they lifted the religious requirements. That is to say that they couldn't make anyone pray or attend chapel services as a requirement for residing at the shelter. Neither could they make or enforce any other religious policies such as not allowing people to smoke cigarettes. CUM is still bargaining with the city for the Gales School; but, they know full well that they must lighten up on the religious requirements in order for this deal to move forward. With Catholic charities receiving city funds, they can expect the same type of treatment.

The crux of the issue is whether Catholic Charities is more of a church or more of a business. (I can't help but think of a related ethnic joke.) Should they be exempt from honoring the gay rights law due to being a religious organization or be obligated to obey such a law due to them being a business and receiving city funding?????

While people ponder that question, I'd like to throw a possible solution out there. There has been conversation between homeless advocates and DC Government about the homeless community running the shelters. This too is not without precedent. The CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) Shelter in downtown DC is run by homeless people. No one gets paid to work there. The shelter runs entirely on donations, with the building being owned by the city. The building was actually wrested from the Reagan administration by homeless people who were operating under the leadership of Mitch Snyder.

This conversation needs to be picked up and become a bit more serious. Furthermore, the city should actually pay the homeless to run the shelters. They should transfer the money that they would've given to Catholic Charities to the homeless who would run the shelters. The homeless would be willing to run the shelters with the reduced budget that Catholic Charities cried about in October. Furthermore, it would serve to empower the homeless -- to instill in them a can-do attitude. This alone would lead to a substantial decrease in homelessness. Just something to think about.

~#~

For more of Eric's thoughts on this, here's a link to his most recent post:  On the Clock with Eric Sheptock: Have a Heart For the Homeless -- Raising Awareness on a Social Justice Issue

Happy Holidays

Yeah, I know. I've still got a LOT of drafts sitting here unfinished (brother komrade I haven't forgotten about you!), but it's Christmas, so I'm working backward - kind of. I just wanted to send some of that "Peace, Love and Goodwill" stuff to each and every one of you as well as make a couple observations. I've always, always loved Christmastime. People are a lot nicer to each other than during any other time of year. The twinkling lights, the handed-down ornaments, red velvet bows, the smell of a freshly cut long-needled pine tree, fruitcake (yes, I'm one of the 12 people who love fruitcake!), egg nog - all of it! Add to that, lots of family coming in from everywhere (my maternal grandmother's SC brood numbered in the teens!), all the cooking, talking, playing cards, laughing, drinking, eating and staying up all night we'd do, and I had the makings for my most favorite holiday of the year! Sure, as a child, the anticipation of getting was a huge factor in that holiday spirit (we were no less American than anybody else in this consumptive society!). But not since my brother and I happened on our parents' late night bike assembly in the living room (yes, I too believed the lie!), has the getting of gifts been my "reason for the season." Making the transition from anticipating getting to anticipating giving was easy enough. But since the materialism and the insecurity upon which it was based (along with the commercialism that drove it) was deeply embedded in my psyche, the thing with which I struggled hardest, was the reason for the giving. And even now, though I know what's really important, I still found myself today wondering why the streets were so silent - no kids playing outside or skating or riding their new bikes or anything. My husband says it's because they all got computer games instead, no need to go outside. Having made some difficult choices this past year, it didn't feel much like Christmas today. But as difficult as those choices were to make, and even now, to maintain, they were the right ones for me. The downside of those decisions was that I experienced none of the afore-mentioned preludes to Christmas this year. I missed it tremendously. I wasn't totally alone though. I shared this one - quietly - with my husband and my dog. But I still needed some of that "familyship." So, around 1:30 or 2, with no gifts to give but ourselves, we set out looking for a shelter where we could volunteer. I figured surely in DC there'd be plenty, given the number of homeless people I've encountered since I got here. It didn't matter if I served food or not, just the being among others who may or may not have had family with whom they could share the day would have been perfect for me and hopefully for them too. I say "would have," because again I found myself wondering why the streets were so silent. The first shelter was closed. The second, had already served dinner, the third, which catered exclusively to teens, was also locked up tight. We stopped a police car and asked them if the knew of any still open where we could go and help out. They gave us directions to two more, but they were closed too! So much for finding "familyship." Back to the ranch we went. Flipping through the channels, I heard Eartha Kitt had died today at 81. After damn near 60 years of performing, she is now, according to Nightline - "the incomparable Eartha Kitt." I tell you, white America has cornered the revisionist history market in this country! I'm old enough to remember when "incomparable" was the last adjective they'd use to describe her. From birth - the result of her half-Black/half-Cherokee mother being raped by a white man on the South Carolina plantation on which she share-cropped - to becoming "incomparable," Eartha was shunned by whites and a fair share of Blacks (that blending made it at once, impossible to "pass" and impossible to fit in). After having been given away to relatives in Harlem before she was 10 (not an uncommon occurrence in our community during those days), the teen-aged Eartha, like Josephine Baker, had to travel abroad before anybody white seriously recognized her talent. Thanks to the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, she took Paris by storm, found her voice and returned to America a star who'd pissed off more than a few Black folks by publicly thumbing her nose at being called Black. I remember distinctly being at my grandmother's in "the country" and my mother, grandmother and a couple of aunts saying, "She can try to act white if she wanna but they'll show her!" I remember because I was an 11 or 12 year-old Batman fanatic at the time and loved the growl (Halle Berry's got nothing on Eartha Mae!). "They" did, however, show her. In 1968, invited, as stars are and continue to be, to a luncheon at the White House, Eartha Mae was an equal opportunity pisser-offer. Deftly wielding her foreign-found voice, she pissed of a whole slew of white folks - in the White House - with her comments about the Vietnam War. She was castigated by white America. My Williams women, smug in their rightness said, "I told you so." But now, since whites have selected the "appropriate kind" of African-American for president, Eartha Mae Kitt is now "incomparable" - and dead, unable to hear all the accolades being bestowed upon her in this (*snark alert*) "post-racial" society. Go figure. In any event, enjoy the holiday season for whatever reasons you claim. But please, spread a little goodwill some-damn-where!