Blog 2

 

 

 

A popular reddit post that hit the front page last week reminded me of the Hamilton article in a couple of ways.  The post was titled “I gave this homeless man, Paul, my Kindle after learning that he’d been reading the same book over and over. He hasn’t put it down for days” by a user named u/mjuad.  While this is a heartwarming post that restores some faith in humanity, it is also in my opinion a type of “literacy as defiance”, although in a different sense than Hamilton intended.  While Hamilton’s idea of defiance is more about protest and opposition, I think that Paul is defying the stereotypes and ideas that most people have about the homeless.  Most people would probably expect him to not be interested in literature, and if given a piece of technology such as a kindle he would sell it or not take care of it.  However, Paul doesn’t seem to be a typical homeless man, as he has some pretty nice things.  I’d say that the only aspects of his appearance that makes him look homeless is his beard, and the fact that he is sitting on the ground.  He has glasses, nice boots, a fairly nice jacket, and TWO guitars, which makes me skeptical of the whole situation.  He could just be an old man sitting on a sidewalk reading his Kindle, and someone took a picture and slapped on a nice caption to earn internet points.  Who Knows?  Only OP knows.