Ataturk and #FitchTheHomeless

Hi Amanda,

Okay so you've probably seen the "Fitch the Homeless" video and probably some of the various anti- "Fitch the Homeless" articles written about it.

Being the big, fat History (capital H) nerd that I am, the first thing that came to mind after watching the video was Ataturk.

Ataturk knew how to rock a stache

Ataturk was a revolutionary/president/ pseudo-dictator in Turkey for the first few decades of the 20th century. And, he was such a big deal that it is still illegal in Turkey to insult his memory. It's even part of the Facebook definition for blocked content: "Holocaust denial which focuses on hate speech [and] all attacks on Ataturk, visual and text." A little extreme but there you go.

Ataturk radically changed the culture of Turkey, and wanted desperately to Westernize it. And one of his goals was getting rid of the veil. In a predominantly Muslim country this was a delicate undertaking. Instead of pulling a France, Ataturk didn't outlaw the veil outright. Instead he made a mandate that forced prostitutes  to wear one. Since good, religious girls don't want to be confused with ho's, they stopped wearing  the veil. Bam. Ataturk'd. 

So, the Fitch the Homeless guy is trying to do something similar. He's using the negative cache of the homeless rather than of prostitutes to attack Abercrombie and Fitch. Yes, he is using homeless people to prove a point, and that's not super awesome. He obviously doesn't really care about the homeless people he's giving the clothes too. But honestly, I don't really care about the homeless people that I give money too either. I don't ask them about their days. I don't learn their names. I don't ask them what they really need. I just pull out a small bill and put it in their bucket. And then I stop thinking about them. Obviously, I'm not really acting like Jesus and neither is this guy. And I completely agree that it would be a better world if we were.  But no one can argue that this guy hasn't been effective, and I think you could also say that there are a lot more harmful things you could do for homeless people than trying to pressure a company into helping clothe more of them. 

But, there are also way more effective ways to help homeless people. It's a really kind of meh social justice campaign. It doesn't do a lot of good and it has the possibility to hurt the population its aimed at helping. 

But I'm all for making attempts at bettering the world, even ones that need improvement. The Kony 2012 campaign also had drawbacks, but hey, they're young, talented guys trying to use the privileges and opportunities awarded them to help someone else. And that's awesome. High fives for effort.

slacktavist: n. a pejorative often, but not always, used by people that aren't doing anything to help anyone. Used in reference to people that are trying to help but are perhaps doing it inefficiently or poorly. 

My major beef with the nay-sayers is that they don't give good alternatives. Anyone can point out problems,  but the most useful criticisms point out new solutions. So... here is a list of awesome charities that are consistently well ranked by third parties and could seriously benefit from both your money and your advocacy:

Against Malaria Foundation
GiveDirectly
Brother's Brother Foundation
Boys and Girls Club of America

You forgot His Girl Friday,
Steph

What are the best charities/causes?

This is your carte blanche permission to post to petitions and fundraisers and whatever. 

Let's help each other, help each other.

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