No doubt that you’ve heard Jerry Belson’s infamous catchphrase “never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME.” Despite many of us being well aware of this, we still, every once in a while, fall into this trap because c’mon, we’re all human.
One of the more unorthodox assumptions that have been drawing Twitter’s attention was @MilkyLazarus’ recent tweet about how she wanted to share some tea with a homeless man, but he ended up refusing the offer because he simply preferred coffee.
And this sparked a bit of a polarizing debate among many Tweeters on whether the homeless man actually had a choice in this situation.
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The internet's full of debates, and there was one on Twitter about whether the homeless can actually be choosers
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Around a week ago, Twitter user @MilkyLazarus shared a thing that happened to her—she wanted to get something to eat for a homeless man she had stumbled upon in the street.
Based on her tweets, it seems she had asked the man what he wanted, and as it turned out that what he wanted was part of a meal deal that also included a drink. So she got that for him with some tea.
It started with this Tweeter sharing how a homeless man reacted to her giving him some tea along with a meal she bought for him
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To her surprise, the homeless man refused the tea because he simply preferred coffee. In her tweet, Milky said that this was a humbling experience to her as she shouldn’t have assumed he’d like tea and should have asked beforehand. In her defense, she assumed everyone liked tea.
And this sparked a bit of a heated debate among people on Twitter. In particular, people began debating if the homeless man actually had a choice here—if he could have been able to be a ‘choosing beggar’ here or not because of the situation that he was in (at least face value).
This has sparked a huge debate, with one side defending the homeless man's actions
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You see, there is this assumption that if a person is homeless, any help is better than no help at all, even if that homeless person doesn’t necessarily like it. And this is where two major sides formed.
On the one hand (and the seeming majority), you have people saying that yes, the homeless man can and should express his choice here because he is still a human being and taking that away is effectively dehumanizing him—something we as a society shouldn’t do.
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Others however were of a different opinion, arguing that the homeless man was in the wrong
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Others also added that people should consider a situation where the role would be reversed—would you, in a position as a victim of poverty, appreciate people forcing their charity upon you without consideration for things like allergies, needs, and whatnot?
The debate also spun off from ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ to ‘are you doing this to help someone or to make yourself feel good?’
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On the other hand, there were people who argued that no, the homeless should be happy with whatever they get, and this particular man probably wasn’t hungry or thirsty enough as he’s so picky.
Others argued that the man did not appreciate the gift and the effort that Milky put into all of this, and he was just being rude at that point.
Yet others put it this way: once you give something to someone, it is no longer yours, and it is for them to do as they wish with this gift of yours, and you can’t say anything about it at that point.
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Yet others shared their own stories of helping homeless people with mixed results
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There was also a camp consisting of people who just shared stories of times they did something good for homeless people with mixed results. But regardless of the side of the debate, the tweet went viral, garnering 137,000 likes with nearly 13,500 retweets.
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So what do you think of this? Which side of the debate do you take? Let us know in the comment section below!