Too soft on squeegeers
To the editor,
Lezlie Lowe's article about squeegee kids ("Squeezing squeegeers," Jan. 10) uses the word threat in an abstract manner---that is, the threat to the middle-class sensibilities of people who have to see the face of poverty.
There's another kind of threat there---one your reporter obviously decided to ignore.
Squeegee kids regularly act in a pushy, aggressive, even threatening manner, approaching cars and forcing their "service" on them, despite the fact that drivers are clearly waving them off. I walk through the Willow Tree intersection every day and see this kind of aggressive panhandling frequently.
The criminalization and marginalization of poverty is a legitimate subject of discussion, but the squeegee kids are hardly the noble, misunderstood class warriors you make them out to be. As long as they continue their aggressive panhandling, my sympathies do not lie with them.
By Hansel Cook