This is Billy Bob and the Consortium
Let’s Have a Conversation Today
We Have Become Hot Potatoes in Every City
Hurry Catch, too Hot to Hold onto, Tossed To and Fro
Opening Discussion Topic
Okay, guys, settle down, today is our first discussion like we are college people, and y’all ain’t ready! I still don’t know if be a trick or trap, but it doesn’t matter, let’s educate them housed folks if we can. And remember it is designed to make y’all mad, angry and upset, but that is how we are going to start talking, so hold onto your coffees. This is the “World” talking to us, the bums! Ready:
Hey—gather ’round.
Topics up for discussion.
Catch.
It’s their fault.
No—it’s the government’s.
Catch.
It’s the system failing.
Catch it—quick—before the music stops.
No, I don’t want it.
It’s too hot.
Accountability?
Responsibility?
No—take it back.
The potato is way too hot, and I will not answer for the failure of our care toward the homeless.
But you and I both know this: one day the music will stop. The hot potato will land. And they—the faces we avoided, the people we stepped around—will flash before our dying eyes.
Our hearts will be pricked, and we will be asked:
Should we have?
Could we have?
And all the while, we tossed the potato—passing blame, dodging responsibility—pretending this cruelty was normal.
But don’t worry, we say.
They’ll go away.
That’s the euphemism.
And when they’re gone, we won’t need stupid stories like this anymore—because there will be no one left to remind us.
Right?
Initial Reaction from the Consortium
Wait just one minute, we are being compared to hot potatoes like children’s games, really? Why, because we are easy to consume and disappear into the system?
Too hot to handle, too hot to be worried about? I mean, man, they are mixed up, potatoes are for eating and for getting full, not for throwing around and wasting!
I am not sure if I like these cards that pop up on us, it gets so unhappy, I want to throw my coffee, we are like hot potatoes!
So again, we are labeled and stuck with it so that they do not have to allow their emotion or packet book to be touched, I mean, what does a potato need anyway?
Okay, time out, breath, drink coffee, great start, now switch, okay?
Round Table Discussion/Frustration
Bill, you like you are itching to say something, go ahead, please. I mean, they must think we are pretty far gone if they think we do not understand hot potatoes. That is what they do when they want to change the dynamics of any group: they throw in an outsider, an off the mark thing, and watch the group implode. With the homeless, they have been adding in criminals to make it easier to chase and jail us. Here is an example that is easy for you housed folks to understand: you have salsa and it is good, but you want it spicy. So, you add to it, and it is fundamentally changed, that is what happens when criminals are added in.
Okay, me next, please, me. Johnny Boy, go ahead, but stay on topic, please. We are the hot potatoes that they are talking about in that darn card. They throw us here and there and never think or care about and consider solving the problem of homelessness. As we are tossed here, then we are tossed there, then tossed again and again until we break apart. Our lives are those hot potatoes. Because see, it is easier and better for y’all if we don’t land anywhere for too long, compassion may break through. That potato skin that is wrapped around a real potato is a storyline for the junk and the stories and the lies that are wrapped aound us as we are tossed and tossed again, and told it is our fault.
Pete, you look like you are about to choke on your coffee, go ahead and talk, please. Our fault, their fault, the government’s fault, the system failed, the church failed, the blame game is the hot potato, and it needs to end. Until it does lives are being lost here on the streets. Those who started this game do not even know the consequences of it; they are simply unthinking. The government, instead of fixing it, have developed an entire potato bar, where you can have your potato any way that you want, and then it disappears!
Hot Potato was a great game when we were kids, and lives were not on the line, but allowing it to run the game for homelessness and to determine if we get care, food, help, or mercy is ridiculous, but the government will see it no other way. Accountability, responsibility, those words are ones the government cannot and will not own, but we are supposed to with one handtied behind our backs, how, why, tell us please. The potato always leaves a residue in the pan or pot in which they were cooked; no one gets mad at that, but in our case, it is all that is seen. The hearty part of the potato is gone, and the government likes it that way.
Riposte
Yes, the government failed—but failure didn’t end there.
When compassion became inconvenient,
we learned to pass people instead of carrying them.
Hot potatoes don’t burn because they’re dangerous,
they burn because holding them requires care
Hearts pricked—should we have?
No.
We tell ourselves they will simply go away.
Away into shadows we don’t have to name,
into corners where conscience can’t reach,
into statistics, policies, clean reports and quiet streets.
We rehearse the lie until it sounds like wisdom:
Not our problem. Not our fault. Not our turn.
And so we wait for absence to do what compassion would not—
for disappearance to absolve us,
for silence to drown out the question
that keeps knocking at the heart.
They say we tossed them down the street like a hot potato—
but ain’t it their fault?
Funny how blame cools the burn
while the potato keeps moving
until it lands on someone else’s conscience.
They avoid.
We avoid.
The government avoids.
Problems aren’t solved—only stacked,
a pile of hot potatoes
growing higher
as people suffer below.
Okay, Our Turn, We Ask You Some Questions:
Our Hope that you will see through the superficial topic of discussion, seeing us as hot potatoes, that trap us to the streets and to the graves
That you begin to understand the danger of: Not thinking for your own self, but where you can challenge groupthink
See the great divide presented today in this discussion, where we are mere objects, too hot to handle, but to be diced up and dealt with without emotions, not consumed, but tossed into the nearest trash.
Finally, assess for yourself, is this a true, true mindset that I have allowed or is it something that I have been fed, and it is false, critically important
Conclusion
Well, this has been an interesting topic today that you folks handed off to us. I am not sure if thank you is the right answer or not, but I will be the gentleman and say, thanks. You know the bible tells us to be compassionate:
Colossians 3: 12
Therefore, as God’s chosen people holy and dearly loved
Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience
Thinking about what we talked about today, I did not hear too much about compassion, and that is unhealthy for both sides of the discussion. See, we, the homeless, try to show that to each other, but we don’t have the ability to do very much, y’all hold the purse and heartstrings, maybe one day things will change.
Until then, we simply will be a collection of hot potatoes for everybody to toss from side to side and from here to there and never to consider that we are human. At some point, those potatoes are going to reach a tipping point, and the overflow will not land on us much as it will land on the failures of the world that will not acknowledge the reality of the problem for all who struggle with and through homelessness. Remember, potatoes are very hot when they are first pulled from the oven, and tossing them does not reduce heat, so think twice, are we to be as such?
What Will Their Outcome Be?
You Have a Part to Play…
