(Photo: www.filmaffinity.com)I've been on a mad chase, of sorts, to figure out why it seems every tenth person I see in Skid Row is wearing an orange t-shirt that says "Knights of Prosperity". Seeing that there are a number of religious recovery programs and shelters in skid row, I assumed it was for a bible study or a church plant; maybe they made t-shirts for their summer bbq or their retreat in the pasadena suburbs.
After asking a handful of people where they go their shirt, I finally accepted that there was no real meaning behind it. "They were just giving them out on the corner of 6th and San Pedro."
Apparently, Knights of Prosperity was an ABC comedy show that never really took off. With a surplus of t-shirts and a small fan-base, the contracted advertisement company likely opted for a tax write-off and gave the t-shirts as a gift to one of the numerous agencies in the Skid Row region.
Now I'm not aiming at being critical of donations (although there is a good criticism to be made. The domestic violence shelter that we work with has gotten cow utter lubricant donated as well as thousands of Jerry Springer t-shirts, which they haven't yet found a good use for) because without donations from large corporations and family garages, our non-profits would suffer greatly. There is something to be said, of course, for donating what the organization needs, and not just what is convenient to get off of one's hands and out of one's pantry. And yet, as I read about the ABC Knights of Prosperity show that never really was, how the plot was to follow a group of robin hoods as they attempted to rob well known celebrities (like Mick Jagger), I can't but think it's a perfect irony.
Skid Row residents, who live off of both their own resourcefulness and others' generosity, do often have a robin hood attitude. It is not uncommon for a soup kitchen patron who I sit down with for breakfast to tell me, in less academic terms, how I should just subscribe to marxism and make my passion in life resource redistribution. And, often, I want to agree with them. And, just as often, I want to muse that hard work seems to make us happy, and that the Protestant Work Ethic might have some good retort to cries for redistribution. I wish I didn't conclude everything with "it's both/and rather than either/or!" but, I think it is. I haven't heard a rich man's story yet that didn't involve a dose of luck and a dose of hard work, and I haven't heard a poor man's history, either, which didn't have some personal failures as well as society's flops in the mix.
So, today, when I walk back from the library where I write this to the metro blue line that takes me back to my South LA home, I will undobutedly see a Knights of Prosperity shirt. Orange, likely washed in the machines of LA or Midnight Mission, and I'll think: "if we Robin Hood and J.P. Morgan had a child..."
