The Tragedy of Indifference

Every now and again when I'm scouring the web, I'll come across something that stops me in my tracks. Something that makes me sick to my stomach- literally. Something that bothers me so deeply I think about it for days.

Well, this is one of those stories. 

Here's an excerpt, straight from the The Detroit News:

It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

"He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks," the caller phoned to tell this reporter.

"Why didn't your friend call the police?"

"He was trespassing and didn't want to get in trouble," the caller replied. As it happens, the caller's friend is an urban explorer who gets thrills rummaging through and photographing the ruins of Detroit. It turns out that this explorer last week was playing hockey with a group of other explorers on the frozen waters that had collected in the basement of the building. None of the men called the police, the explorer said. They, in fact, continued their hockey game.

The hem of a beige jacket could be made out, as could the cuffs of blue jeans. The socks were relatively clean and white. The left shoe was worn at the heel but carried fresh laces. Adding to the macabre and incongruous scene was a pillow that gently propped up the left foot of the corpse. It looked almost peaceful.

What happened to this person, one wonders? Murder in Motown is a definite possibility. Perhaps it was death by alcoholic stupor. Perhaps the person was crawling around in the elevator shaft trying to retrieve some metal that he could sell at a scrap yard. In any event, there the person was. Stone-cold dead.

There are two things about this story that I find so devastating. 

First, this story illustrates the tragedy of not having a home. The vulnerability. This tragic state where one can end up frozen in a block of ice in an elevator shaft. No person should have to meet their death in such an undignified and unfortunate manner. Where was this mans family? What happened in his life that he resorted to life on the streets? Will anyone mourn his death? These are questions I ask myself when I see homeless people who appear to have given up, who have resigned to the streets.

Second, the indifference of those who found him is perhaps most unsettling. The Detroit News Article goes on to describe how the "urban explorers" figured someone else would report this man's death. Now, I don't want to believe that the majority of people would be equally as heartless in this situation. But then again, how is this any different then when we shun those living on the streets? When we ignore them and chalk up their predicament to personal faults? Or that they "chose" to live this way? When we fail to take matters into our own hands to see that these societal injustices stop claiming lives? 

See, I know this is a story about the tragic fate of one man in Detroit. But I think it's more than that. It's an analogy for the mindset of so many people when it comes to homelessness. They are indifferent. They couldn't be bothered by somebody else's misery, somebody else's pain. "Someone else will fix it." "Someone else will fund that shelter." "Someone else will help that child have a chance at a better future."

Indifference is, indeed, tragic.

[Photo: Inside the abandoned Roosevelt Warehouse in Detroit, a body lies frozen in a block of ice. (By Max Ortiz / The Detroit News)]