Zoe Nightingale

IIntroducing Kai and Plasma, two traveling ladies of the streets who came up to ask me if I could give them money to help replace their boyfriends with rats. I mean, how does one say no to this question? I ended up on a literal rat race around New York City that took two days and brought into sharp focus some interesting questions for me about the morality around animal rights. What I always find to be incredible, is that somehow our worth is locked into home ownership. One of the most vicious capitalistic reinforcements, where if you live on the streets you become invisible and not worthy of compassion. These girls were not drug addicts, they were women who had had difficult upbringings and had become used to a life hopping fright trains, seasonal work (they pick blueberries and weed!)and a revolving roster of men who take advantage of them. Kai, a Native American who left her reservation to find a better life and with brutal trappings of little education on the reservation fell into stripping (her stripper