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Homeless Rhetoric: a Rhetorical Criticism of the Street

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Homeless Rhetoric: a Rhetorical Criticism of the Street HOMELESS RHETORIC: A RHETORICAL CRITICISM OF THE STREET NEWSPAPER, “THE HOMELESS GRAPEVINE” A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Eve M. Hjort August, 2010 HOMELESS RHETORIC: A RHETORICAL CRITICISM OF THE STREET NEWSPAPER, “THE HOMELESS GRAPEVINE” Eve M. Hjort Thesis Approved: Accepted: _____________________________ _____________________________ Advisor Interim School Director Dr. Mary Triece Dr. Kathleen Endres _____________________________ _____________________________ Committee Member Interim Dean of the College Dr. Kathleen Clark Dr. Dudley Turner _____________________________ _____________________________ Committee Member Dean of the Graduate School Dr. Julia Spiker Dr. George Newkome _____________________________ Date ii TABEL OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................1 Street Newspapers............................................................................................................4 II. LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................8 Media Portrayals of the Homeless ...................................................................................8 Ethnographies ................................................................................................................10 Studies, Street Newspapers, and the Homeless .............................................................11 Vernacular Discourse.....................................................................................................20 Research Questions........................................................................................................22 III. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................23 Thematic Analysis .........................................................................................................25 IV. A RHETORICAL CRITICISM OF HOMELESS WRITINGS IN THE STREET NEWSPAPER THE HOMELESS GRAPEVINE .............................................................27 Sources of Oppression ...................................................................................................28 Establishing Identification .............................................................................................41 Perceptions of Self.........................................................................................................44 Homeless Perceptions of the Broader Community........................................................47 V. CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................52 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................56 iii APPENDECIES...............................................................................................................61 Appendix A. Grapevine Vendor Contract .....................................................................62 Appendix B. Homeless Grapevine Issues Analyzed .....................................................64 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Street newspapers in whatever form they take, are tangible testaments to the depth and breadth of eyewitness accounts of a time and place in our history when issues of homelessness and poverty were being framed by participants not just politicians. It is important to be reminded of these human beings who are so often marginalized. These publications bear witness to the variety of sentiments--from pathos to bathos to humor—and individual stories of those struggling to be heard. (Green, 1999, para.18) Sommer (2000) notes that, “In the 1980s, homelessness attracted a great deal of attention from the media, advocates, politicians, and the public. Every level of government responded to the visibly growing problem. Virtually every sector of society intervened” (p. 4). We live in a much different world today, where our streets are filled with those who cannot feed themselves or their families, and the helpful attention given to the homeless is not as bountiful as it once was. Those who live in boxes underneath a bridge, who drink and use drugs as a way to escape their reality, are a common sight in this society. It is easy to ignore them, to sit in our car at the red light and pretend they are just out of our view. It is simple to blame them for the situation they are in and to justify not giving them any help. The homeless population is on the rise with the economy sinking and the unemployment rate sky rocketing. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual survey last year found homelessness remained steady at about 1.6 million people, but the percentage of rural or suburban homelessness rose from 23 percent to 32 percent. 1 The 2009 HUD report, which reflected the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2008, also found the number of sheltered homeless families grew from about 473,000 to 517,000. (Associated Press, 2010, para. 6) This rise in homelessness has sparked interest in finding ways to assist those on the brink of becoming homeless and those who are already homeless. Even as the homeless population has grown since the 2008 economic downturn, the voices of this group remain by and large muted. The issues that they deal with on a daily basis are largely ignored within most communities. The media play a prominent role in shaping popular conceptions of the poor as “bums, lazy” etc. According to Torck, “a growth of violence towards homeless persons can be seen, encouraged by a dominant official position that represents homeless persons as bums, drunks or drug addicts too lazy to work and not worthy of public respect” (2001, p. 373). This study looks at writings by the homeless in street newspapers because it is important to see how the homeless view themselves and how they want others to view them. While the media send messages about what it means to be homeless, less attention has been paid to how the homeless identify themselves and their own needs. The primary street newspaper examined in this study, The Homeless Grapevine (based in Cleveland Ohio), not only advocates for the opinions of the homeless, but seeks to educate people about homelessness from the point of view of those who experience it daily or have experienced it in the past. It is quite obvious that there is a separation between the homeless and the broader community. Oftentimes this solidified and reiterated in the media, which is where the majority of the broader community goes for their information. 2 Gerald Daly discusses the idea of dissociation between homeless persons and the broader community: These individuals are consigned to the periphery of public consciousness because by failing to conform they violate social norms and offend public sensibilities. We deal with them by dissociation, distancing ourselves to minimize or displace feelings of resentment, fear, contempt, guilt, shame, or conflict...We compartmentalize and place barriers between “us” and “them”. Dissociation is a dehumanizing process that manifests itself in the terminology used to describe homeless individuals. (1996, p. 8-9) Shields (2001) agrees with the idea of dissociation, and argues that “the standard news frames construct the homeless as deviants; fortifying the boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’” (p. 194). Although the media report what is going on in the homeless community, they most often don’t do it from the homeless perspective. Revealing the homeless perspective may help to reduce the uncertainty and doubt with which the broader community views the homeless community. Although it is important to realize that the media have the power to give the homeless a voice (or to keep them from having a voice), the focus of this study is the voice of the homeless within the newspaper The Homeless Grapevine. The voice of homeless individuals is not uniform. Many subcultures rest underneath the much larger culture of homelessness. There is a variation within and among homeless individuals and their experiences, beliefs, values, and attitudes. Homeless people are often seen as having one voice that only revolves around their hardships in life. The act of stereotyping leads to the broader community to distance themselves from the homeless community. It is important to note then, that each 3 homeless individual provides a unique voice, and although there may be common themes found among those voices, they should be looked at individually first and foremost. Street Newspapers Street newspapers have been around for a relatively long period of time, and were especially prevalent in the 1990’s within the United States. “Variations on the homeless paper have been around for a century - a newsletter called the ‘Hobo News’ was popular in the early 1900s. But the first of the modern-day street papers was started in 1989 in New York City and called the Street News” (Harman, 2003, p. 2). In the very early years these newspapers often had a religious tone to them, and left out the political aspect (Green, 1999). Many street newspapers have struggled to stay afloat and have closed due to problems with vendors (although there may be other reasons such as a lack of grants and donations). There is also the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) which allows for communication among the multiple street
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