Last night, historian Heather Cox Richardson laid out the macro view of how “fraud” has been weaponized for more than a century — from Reconstruction to MAGA — to silence women, Black people, and anyone pushing for equity. Today, I want to share the micro view: the ordinary street corner where the same ideology played out. A man with a cardboard sign declaring a desperate woman a “fraud” before she could speak for herself. Because this is not only about power and greed. It is about control — the preservation and continuation of the violence of white supremacist paternalism. Heather shows how it shapes laws and parties; I show how it shows up in our daily lives, in the small moments we often pass by without stopping, interrupting, or naming for what they are: judgment standing in the way of compassion.
It was a hot weekday afternoon, and I was headed to the big warehouse store—you know the one. The corporate giant that makes a point of upholding its DEI policies. After stocking up on the basics and filling the tank, I drove toward the access road that connects the parking lot to the main street. It’s a short stretch, maybe 300 feet, and it’s common to see someone there: a person with a cardboard sign, or sometimes selling flowers or snacks, the kind of hustle born out of necessity.
On the rare occasion I carry cash, I’ll usually hand it to women or to people of color—people who, in my eyes, are already fighting uphill battles that don’t need me adding suspicion on top.
This time, as I eased onto the access road, I saw something unusual. First came a white-presenting man, holding his own sign in bold black letters: “She’s a fraud, don’t do it.” He looked unremarkable—just another body on the corner—but his presence was a spectacle. And then, twenty feet ahead, I saw the target of his declaration: a young woman with a small child in a stroller. She looked like she wanted to fold into herself, hiding behind the small white sign she held, her eyes fixed anywhere but on mine. No performance, no plea—just a quiet shame that seemed to blanket her and her child together.
The Anger Rising
I was pissed. Because I know what it can take to feel that desperate. To get to the point of standing on a corner with a handwritten sign, you’ve probably already burned through every option. Maybe you’ve asked for help and been told no. Maybe you don’t have family, or the family you do have can’t—or won’t—step in. Maybe you’ve gone through every official channel, only to find the line too long, the paperwork too complicated, the waitlist too endless. Or maybe you’re in something darker—maybe this woman was being trafficked, maybe she was trying to claw her way out of a bad situation.
The point is: no one wants to be standing on a corner begging strangers for coins. Not if they have any other way.
And what the hell was that man doing there? What makes someone spend their own time and energy not to help, not to feed, not to shelter, but to shame? To hold up his own cardboard sign in accusation, as though public judgment was a form of justice?
I was confused, almost spinning with it. Part of me wanted to turn the car around and confront him. The scenarios flew through my mind in rapid fire: cuss the man out, find an ATM and give the woman money, offer her a lift to the local shelter, circle back and cuss the man out again.
Authority Without Cause
In all my years—living in major cities, quiet suburbs, and rural towns—I have never seen anything like this. Who was this man to stand there, self-appointed judge and jury, stripping this woman of her narrative before she even had a chance to speak?
Apart from her dark hair, I couldn’t tell if she was a person of color or not. But the truth is—it doesn’t matter. Her presence on that corner, sign in hand, stroller at her side, was her reality in that moment. And yet, here was a man declaring her story null and void, overwriting her need with his accusation.
This is exactly why women struggle to be believed. Because too often, their voices are drowned out by some non-descript individual asserting his excess testosterone all over a situation he doesn’t understand and has no business interfering in. His presence wasn’t about truth—it was about power. About the audacity of assuming that his word alone could erase hers.
A Symbol of Something Bigger
That man wasn’t just one man. He was a representation of society itself. Of white privilege, of patriarchy, of the structures that insist on speaking over women before they even open their mouths. His cardboard sign was only a smaller version of the same red pens slashing through résumés, the same gavel strikes silencing testimony, the same whispered doubts that follow women into exam rooms, boardrooms, and courtrooms.
This is exactly what women are up against—politically, professionally, every day. To exist in a world where you must constantly prove your need, your pain, your credibility, while men are so often granted authority by default. His word versus hers—and in his mind, his word wins every time.
And yet, there he was, holding a piece of cardboard on a hot afternoon, making himself into the keeper of truth. Not because he had evidence, not because he had context, but because society has trained him to believe he didn’t need either. His authority was presumed, and hers was denied.
Fraud or Not, Desperation is Still Real
Here’s what gets me: if every accusation were true—that she was somehow running a scam, that her story was exaggerated, that she wasn’t the perfect picture of purity or sobriety—does that erase her desperation? Does it make her child less in need of food, shelter, stability?
The obsession with rooting out “fraud” blinds us to the obvious: no one chooses humiliation if they have a real alternative. No one willingly spends hours on a hot corner with a stroller just to see if strangers might toss them some change. That is not a con—it’s a collapse.
But we live in a culture that only recognizes the “perfect victim.” A woman without vices, a mother without flaws, a person who can package their need in a way that makes everyone else comfortable. And if you can’t present your pain neatly, then you’re branded a fraud.
The truth is, empathy doesn’t require the whole backstory. Compassion doesn’t need a notarized affidavit. Sometimes the act of survival is evidence enough.
Who Really Looked Desperate?
I think about how obsessed we’ve become with fraud and exposure—this endless hunger to unmask someone, to prove they are unworthy, to hold them up as an example of what not to believe. We treat it like a sport. And more often than not, it is representatives of white privilege and patriarchy who get to frame that narrative, deciding who deserves sympathy and who deserves scorn. Especially when it comes to women, to mothers, to anyone they still feel entitled to control or dominate.
That’s what I saw on that corner. Not just one woman with a stroller. Not just one man with a cardboard sign. But the whole theater of a society that polices desperation instead of addressing it. A culture that prefers to shame need rather than meet it.
And as I drove away, I couldn’t shake the question: Who really looked more desperate—the woman trying to survive, or the man desperate to prove she wasn’t worth saving?
We all need to be not only aware, but vigilant. Because this is not just about one man with a sign and one woman with a stroller — it is about the violence of white supremacist paternalism woven into daily life. These moments of judgment dressed as authority are everywhere. If we do not interrupt what we know to be morally wrong, we allow it to grow. The choice is ours: do we stand with judgment, or do we stand with compassion?💎
If this reflection resonates with you, I invite you to subscribe and support my work. Together we can keep naming these moments, interrupting silence, and choosing compassion over judgment.
This is absolutely on point! The audacity of this man to make all the efforts he did is sickening.
This is so powerfully written & wise & true. Thank you for writing this!