A viral TikToker is bringing awareness to a form of violence called “social cleansing” against homeless people.
The TikToker (@fatuglydyk3) shared an explanation of the term by dueting another TikToker’s (@cjcohn) video, which showed a homeless person’s tent set on fire.
In user @cjcohn’s video, the TikToker is heard yelling at a homeless person, “Yo what the fuck, hey! You have a fucking fire on you, man.” Then he pulled a burning newspaper off the person’s tent.
In user @fatuglydyk3’s duet of the video, they said, “This is someone attempting to murder a homeless (unhoused) person by lighting their tent on fire.”
The TikToker said the incident is a common phenomenon known as “social cleansing” that happens “all the time.”
Social cleansing is defined as “social group-based killing that consists of the elimination of members of society who are considered ‘undesirable,’” according to the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. “Undesirable” social groups can include unhoused people, criminals, the elderly, and people with disabilities.
User @fatuglydyk3’s video has garnered about 83,000 views as of March 10.
Viewers agreed that “social cleansing” is just as common as the TikToker said, with several viewers sharing their own experiences.
“they were shooting fireworks at tents up here in the summer,” one viewer commented on the video.
“the cops burnt my dad’s camp site multiple times,” another viewer commented.
One viewer wrote, “I met a homeless guy who said he’d been hospitalized because someone put rat poison in food that was given to him. I cried so hard that day.”
Some viewers said they don’t understand the hostility, while others blamed politics.
“I’ve never understood this or hostile architecture like these ppl are literally homeless and you tryna make it WORSE for them?!” one TikToker said.
“LASD is volunteering to forcefully remove homeless people and the news is treating it like they volunteered to sell cookies at a bake sell,” another TikToker wrote.
One user said, “our politics of austerity and violence and campaign slogans like “clean up our city” encourage this.”
The Daily Dot reached out to the creator via TikTok comment.
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