They'll Never Know How Close We Were

See more of my thoughts about vintage men here, here, here, and here. Need more? Follow me on Tumblr for an ongoing visual exploration of male intimacy, friendship, and love. 

Let's Play Dress Up: Homelessness and Abercrombie

This wasn't very well thought out.

As a protest against the public comments of Abercrombie and Fitch CEO, someone got the bright idea to play dress up with homeless people. The notion is to embarrass Mike Jeffries by changing the brand: play dress up with homeless people by putting them in A&F skinny jeans and poor quality t-shrits.

It's a totally feel good protest, right? Donate to those who have less. Care for people shivering on the streets. Everyone can feel good. The big bad CEO is punished, homeless people have clothes, and we can all feel morally superior.

Let's be honest. This isn't what is really is going on in the video. We're using homeless people as a foil to bash, demean, and embarrass a company into better behavior. Were using the image of people many consider undesirable (homeless) in a brand's clothing to protest a company that feels certain types of women are undesirable (women over size 10).  

How is this a good idea? How can this possibly be anything other than demeaning toward homeless people? The last line of the YouTube clip sums it up well:

Together, we can make Abercrombie and Fitch the world's number one brand of homeless apparel. 

What does that even mean?

Homeless people. Those people who annoy you by asking for money. The ones you maybe step away from because you are afraid they might smell. The ones you probably walk past without even knowing. You know the sort--the ones that are invisible throw-away people to you. 

Those people.

Let's play dress up with them. Let's put the dirty disgusting homeless people in the "fancy" clothes from A&F so we can embarrass the shit out of Mike Jeffries. Let's make his brand synonymous with unwanted people--the dirty disgusting homeless people.

We'll bring down the value of the brand by displaying undesirable people in A&F branded clothing. That will teach them a lesson for being demeaning toward women who are above a certain clothing size.

No. This wasn't well thought out at all.

Homeless people aren't our playthings to play dress up with. They aren't an easily acquired prop to use for political gain. The campaign is neither cute or clever. It's a cruel abuse of people with very little power in this world. 

The homeless people you walk by deserve a lot more than a quick game of dress up with you.

Mondays with Alan: The Wisdom of Youth

Vintage Love: Roger Miller Pegram

Here is another vintage image that caught my eye. Like many of the others I've posted on Tumblr, I found it on a site that aggregated a lot of vintage photos but had no identifying data.

This one caused me to pause and look for the story. These two men, dressed in similar clothes, seem to be sharing a happy moment in their home. The camera man in the background looking back at us through the image captured by another camera-- I wonder what he's doing there -- and I wonder just what it is he is filming.

The image is dated February 1956. It was captured one year before the images of a same sex wedding that I found that took place in Philadelphia in 1957.  Probably not them. Right? Definitely not the young couple from the Netherlands.

As it turns out, the story of this photo was easy to track down. It turns out that this couple spent at least part of their lives right down the road from me in Andover Massachusetts.

A quick Google Image search turned up the original source of this (and many other) images of these two young men. Bob Young bought these photos and has taken the time to research the history behind them. He's indicated on his Flickr page that it was okay to reblog the photos as long as he's credited. I've decided to reblog his whole post. Bob has done such great work on chronicling this history of these forgotten lives.

Some today wish to deny the existence of same sex relationships. Others like to act as if same-sex relationships are a recent creation. History shows otherwise. These forgotten voices--these vintage loves--are important stories that have been hidden from history. As we tell and retell these stories, we bring back a rich but faded history of love, struggle, and liberation. These men lived in a time where there love was dangerous -- their very act of living was courageous and blazed a trail for all of us live in a today that offers significantly more freedom.

Here is what Young wrote about his images.