After watching the Invisible Homeless video, I felt sad because I realized that many a time, we treat the homeless folks as if they are invisible. We walk past them and act as if they are not there. Nobody even cares to look at their faces or say hi, because in their minds they see homeless as second-class citizens who are not worth it. The homeless people are therefore more likely to be noticed by other homeless people than by the by passers who have roofs over their head. In the video, all the people who were selected for the study confirmed that people are likely to pass their own family members on the streets if they are homeless, as they tend to treat them like invisible human beings. Ideally, I realized that people have an unconscious prejudice when it comes to the way they see the homeless. This is because all of the people who were selected in the experiment seemed to be caring people who would never pass their own family members on the streets intentionally; however, due to the unconscious prejudice they have towards the homeless, they passed their own family members on the streets without knowing. This video essentially shows that we tend to have a notion in our mind that the homeless people are not worth our time and thus we try as much as possible to avoid situations that may make us interact with them. This is because in our minds these people only want to beg for help or money, and thus to avoid saying no to them we try as much as possible to avoid any form of interaction with them. This is the reason why most people do not even look the homeless in the face when they pass by them. In the end, this video made me shed a few tears as it relayed a sad reality within our current society.
Watching the video changed the thoughts and impression, I had for the homeless. This is because I realized that the homeless people on the street are just like us, the only difference between them and us is just our economic status. The fact that they do not have a roof over their head or food to eat, does not make them any less human beings and thus treating them as invisible people is unfair and debasing. Most of the homeless people were not born homeless, they all have a story to tell, and some of them might even be related to us or were once close to us. However, the fact that we try as much as possible to avoid talking to them or looking at them means that there is a probability we have passed up a chance to effect change in someone life. We often treat the less fortunate as being invisible because we do not feel any responsibilities towards them. As long as the people close to us are ok, we believe we are ok because those are the only people we feel responsible for. Ideally, these prejudicial notions need to be scraped off in our minds if we are to live a fulfilling life. If we are to maintain this way of thinking and perception of the homeless then we are likely to one day pass our own family members on the streets without knowing. This is because not all people who live on the streets are there due to financial reasons. There are people living on the streets because they have been affected by drugs while others are there because they once got lost and don’t know how to get back home. This essentially means that you may pass your missing brother, sister, cousin or neighbor on the streets without knowing because of the way we perceive the less fortunate.
Works Cited
Han, Tae. "Have the Homeless Become Invisible HD 720p." YouTube. N.p., 1 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 May 2018.
