“The homeless.”
The phrase entered the public discourse as a kinder, gentler moniker for those living on the streets, a more compassionate alternative for clearly crude and derogatory descriptors like “bum” and “vagrant.” There are still many, however, who sling the term around like a slur. This is what happens to descriptors of marginalized communities over time. Even when they are introduced originally as more neutral or appropriate names than their predecessors (from “colored” to “negro,” from “negro” to “black,” from “black” to “African American”) each new moniker naturally begins to take on the stink of majority culture bigotry eventually, and requires rethinking and renaming by the minority community to shake off that stink as well as to reframe the group based on their current identity preferences.
It is for this reason that strong efforts have been made in recent years to change the lexicon regarding the homeless, with the prevailing terms of choice, judging by the books and journals I’ve been reading on the subject, being “those experiencing homelessness” and “the unhoused.” I understand the rationale behind each effort, but I find them both problematic. Yes, the former does manage to scrape off some of the stigma by depersonalize the experience but it is such a damn clumsy expression, the inelegance of which can’t help but reflect upon the people being described. The latter is certainly more elegant, and it does strip away the false assumptions that a person without shelter is, ipso facto, without a home (“home” having less to do with physical structures, and more to do with certain abstract qualities such as intimacy, warmth, identity, acceptance, etc). But in its neutrality it is devoid of warmth to the point of being clinical which is, by extension, dehumanizing. It also continues the “tribal” construction of the original, with the article “the” preceding the descriptor, implying certain universal “cultural” traits (ala, “The French,” “The Egyptians,” “The Zuni,” etc.). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in that I do think there are commonalities of experience that can be attributable to those who wind up without a legal living space. However in its neutrality a void is created for prejudice to once again fill, leading us back to the original problem.
To be quite honest, I can’t help but feel there’s a certain naivete and neurotic denial at the heart of these renaming efforts. Trying to strip the terms that describe homelessness of their bigotry baggage is noble and valuable, but doing so by “neutering” the experience is, at best, counterproductive and, at worst, actually dehumanizing. As the late great George Carlin said in one of his brilliant routines, “American language is loaded with euphemisms because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality, Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of soft language to protect themselves from it.” He went on to illustrate this point poignantly by describing the morphing of “shell shock,” the term coined in WWI to describe the impact of modern war on the psyche, to today’s “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” As he astutely (and of course riotously) points out, “shell shock” is “simple, honest direct language…two syllables. Almost sounds like the guns themselves.” Whereas, in the modern description of the term “the pain is completely buried under jargon.”
Alternative terms like “the unhoused” don’t quite bury pain under jargon, but they do seem to reflect some difficulty dealing with reality. No matter how it is sliced, winding up on the streets is a significant personal, and symbolic, event. That which we generally want to hide or minimize, namely the brokenness of our personhood or our society (and the relationship between the two personified) is provocatively on full display when one winds up homeless, and that inevitably stirs up strong feelings in both the people who lose their domicile and the public at large. Rather than pretending this isn’t the case, it would be, in my opinion, better to “lean in” to the truth of the experience, use terms that are not artificially neutral but actually embrace more of the true and complete nature of being homeless. In doing so, we may not only help shield against the void being filled with bigotry, but also take ownership of the narrative. It has been a long-standing truism, in modern American (aka Machiavellian) politics, that when a new and unknown candidate enters the political arena, if they don’t define their own narrative it will be defined (negatively) by the competition. If the homeless and their allies don’t define their narrative it will, inevitably, be defined (negatively) by the fears, intolerances, and bigotry of others.
I have given this much thought over the years, and recently came upon a word that really resonates as a strong replacement moniker for “The homeless.” That word is “Azarim” (pronounced “Ah-zah-reem”). It is a Hebrew word (I am Jewish, so no appropriating going on) that translates into “the outsiders,” “the foreigner,” and “the strangers,” with the singular variant (“outsider,” “foreigner,” “stranger”) being “Zarim.” Before diving into the definition, let’s reflect for a moment on the visceral impact of the word itself, how it lands on our ears and impacts our heart. In contrast with “the unhoused” or “those experiencing homelessness,” which are, are best, clinical phrases, there is a warm poetic beauty to “Azarim” and “Zarim.” The words are indeed foreign and strange, at least to our American ears, but in an inviting, rather than fear-inducing, way. The sound of the words, by virtue of their poetic resonance, seems to inject the sentiment “welcome” into definition, and in doing so should have a positive influence on how the Zarim are perceived in society.
As for the definition, I am not suggesting that a homeless person IS an outsider, IS a foreigner, or IS stranger. I am suggesting, rather that these are conditions being embodied and displayed as a byproduct of their experience. It is to recognize, as well, that the Zarim are not embodying traits that are “outside,” “foreign,” or “strange” to the housed, but rather that they are making visible traits and experiences that are universal, but generally denied and disowned by the majority population.
In Billy Joel’s hit song “The Stranger,” Joel wrote the following comparable sentiment:
Well, we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out
And show ourselves when everyone has gone
Some are satin, some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They're the faces of a stranger
But we'd love to try them on
The key in reframing the issue is not to deny that these conditions are being expressed, or (literally) embodied by the Zarim. It is for us to ask ourselves as a society what our relationship should be to a person who is embodying these conditions (and, by extension, ourselves). First and foremost, though, is to recognize and acknowledge reality, rather that minimize or deny it. In doing so, we create space for empathy to emerge.
Being the great pop artist that he is, Joel get’s to this point of empathy as well in his musical reflection on the subject:
Don't be afraid to try again
Everyone goes south every now and then
You've done it
Why can't someone else
You should know by now
You've been there yourself
One would think that in a predominantly Christian society such as our own, in which the sentiment “welcome the stranger” is ostensibly a bedrock principle, we wouldn’t have conditions which are so overtly hostile to the Zarim, and we wouldn’t need to work so hard to engender empathy towards them. Clearly this noble aspect of the faith has been, shall we say, “colonized” by baser personal and, by extension, cultural traits such as greed and power. But at least there is (or should be) a modicum of socially sanctioned moral authority to the argument, which should theoretically facilitate a paradigm shift.