Eyes stared at me and offers to sell drugs to me came from all directions as I pushed a shopping cart along McAllister Street here in San Francisco one Wednesday night. I had just finished serving food to the homeless at Cityteam Ministries on 6th Street when I spotted a homeless couple struggling to push their shopping carts on the street. I had met them earlier that evening at Cityteam. Tim was a laid off construction worker and Kelly was two months pregnant with her sixth child. They were both on their way to another homeless shelter about 2 miles away to spend the evening there. The shopping carts were filled with blankets, clothes, and other miscellaneous items that the couple had picked up along their travels. On top of one cart lay an old Samsonite suitcase. On the other, sleeping bags were piled up on top of one another. Kelly’s pregnancy prevented her from being able to push her shopping cart so Tim was valiantly trying to push both carts to the homeless shelter. The Samsonite suitcase kept falling off the shopping cart because Tim only had so many hands. When I spotted them, I knew immediately that my girlfriend and I could help out so we offered to take them as far as we could. My girlfriend helped to carry the Samsonite suitcase and I helped push one of the shopping carts. The four of us walked together past the drug-dealers with their offers of drugs, the stares from ordinary people, and the smirks of other homeless people. That night, I learned what it meant to be homeless.

After a night like that, it makes you wonder the type of future the baby in Kelly's belly has. Do you think he (assuming a boy) will be going to be the best private schools? Or do you think he'll be hopping from foster home to foster home or from homeless shelter to homeless shelter?

Ultimately, this is the reason why I'm for affirmative action and why, in general, I vote Democrat. Many Republicans who are against affirmative action believe that affirmative action is all about favoritism given to black kids and hispanic kids. Kids who grow up in upper middle class families can never understand this because they went to a school that had predominantly kids of the same background or of the same income-level as they did. They believe they "earned" good grades and are entitled to go to a good school. The truth is, the playing field is never level when you compare kids across the nation. Affirmative action is about levelling the playing field so that kids who grow up in lower income families living in one room shacks, or kids who have no home at all, have a shot at a future, a shot at their dreams, if they work hard enough.

Anyhow, I'll post more about the election later... I guess you can call this a prelude...