The Gentrification of Panhandling
Now there's an orderly procession of opioid-addicted beggars on street corners all across the country. These bums are remarkably different from prior generations of panhandlers.
In the aftermath of the scamdemic, I have noticed many more beggars than ever before, begging in places where you never used to see them. Another difference is, most of these new beggars are white, and this demographic shift has brought about some interesting changes that provide further evidence of very real and meaningful group differences. They have gentrified the world of panhandling.
This sudden preponderance of white panhandlers is no doubt largely the result of the ongoing cultural train-wreck that started with doctors overprescribing Oxycontin and other Big Pharma-produced opioids in the 2000s, accelerated when those prescription drugs were replaced with street heroin during the 2010s, and reached its apotheosis with the fentanyl crisis of the 2020s. In turn, the fentanyl crisis led to the martyrdom of Saint George Floyd and the Burn Loot Murder crusade and…
