As one Indian professor I don’t know said to a Russian-Mexican professor I do know while the latter was giving the former a tour on some unhappy parts of Mexico

As one Indian professor I don’t know said to a Russian-Mexican professor I do know while the latter was giving the former a tour on some unhappy parts of Mexico City: “You want to surprise me with poverty? Look, everyone here has shoes”. Our company moved to San Francisco in late 90s to save money before IPO. The location was right near Tenderloin, the murder capital of the US. I walked through it from time to time. Nothing special, a city like a city. I remember thinking: how nice it is to walk through American streets - so less aggression in the air… There was a huge homeless camp though near Civic Center. There was a homeless man sleeping near a back door to our office, he once saved a girl patronizing a local bar from rape. In Soviet Union these homeless would have been rounded up and moved to some rural location not near than 100 km to any big city. Some could have been criminally tried even, like “elitist” Soviet poet Brodsky who was tried and convicted for a lack of permanent job. “Elitist” who can be tried and convicted any time authorities do not like something he says? (I kinda worried that Americans do not feel that personal freedoms had much value, and are willing to trade them for some fashionable illusion). But I can agree that there can be found some Americans who are materially worse than our family was. Still, calling us elitists - is a sign of laughable ignorance of the world at large.