One should take care not to judge entire swaths of people based upon the behavior of teenagers whom are within that demographic.

Teenagers act on impulse and without thought to repercussions. If you are never going to help refugees, or migrants, or whoever, because of insert some tired, often repeated and circuitous personal anecdote here, then kindly do without the self-gratification of announcing you are done "helping" "these people."

Here's the thing. If there's some line to be crossed, where a vast group of people suddenly become undeserving of your assistance, because of the behavior of an errant few, then you weren't really helping. You were always looking for a reason to stop helping. There was always the threat of that encroaching line, and once you crossed it here you are now refusing to go back. So the line was always there. "I was helping, but then..." So you had expectations for how your "help" was supposed to go, how they would need to be sufficiently grateful to you, based on what you wanted out of the interaction. Your help was about what you got out of it, not about what you gave to them. If you entered into the arrangement capable of taking this highly predictable outcome personally, your "help" was literally the antithesis of selfless. It was all about you. Sure you had noble intentions, but as she often does reality had other things in mind. And if all it took for your noble intentions to evaporate was the first time something like this happened, how noble were they?

Bear in mind I am not excusing the behavior of the people shown here, kids, doing something I would raise my own children to recognize as wrong - it is not excusable, however it remains understandable given their circumstances.

Far less understandable, and certainly more intolerable to me, and what I am judging here, is the mindset demonstrated here from a lot of people, all viewing this minuscule snapshot of human life, from the safety and sanctity of their warm homes, full bellies, lifestyles of total and unquestionable stability (all assumptions to be sure, but safe ones at that,) who up and decide all refugees, or all homeless, or all drug addicts, simply all members of some marginalized group are not worthy of help or assistance, because of the actions of one or a few individuals, "that one time."

my moment [where I felt like I no longer had to help the homeless]...

fuck 90% of the people you see begging on the street

People who help others fulfill neglected needs, help. People who help others meet their needs, but only do so predicated with expectations of their own which need to be met first, do. not. help.

There are thousands of migrants in that facility, and here's a few teenage boys behaving deplorably, and BAM there is all the justification most of you needed to just write off all other people in this facility. Immediately generalized the behavior of this tiny subset, to all the people in there think and act like these few kids here and so why even bother?

Good job leaches for spoiling that for everyone else.

This isn't the first thread I've locked for the same sort of degenerative commentary, and with the way the world going it certainly won't be the last. But insofar as my limited capabilities allow me to, I am not going to let the community I built to become one more place on Reddit where the poor, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised are ritualistically debase. There are many other default subreddits where the commentary is woefully sophomoric, by all means use those. When it comes to this particular brand of "well I used to help, but don't anymore because of.." self-righteousness, I take particular offense and will not allow it to fester as it so plainly does. Conversations like this spiral with ever lower examples of "oh yeah? Well one time I gave a homeless person this, but then..." as individuals try to one up each other with a very twisted sort of "woe is me, the homeless wasn't sufficiently grateful," as if they are blind to the reality of homelessness.

I do not do much hands-on unilateral decision making in this community, because I have excellent moderators who take it very seriously, and because the community is rather light hearted and jovial in nature. When I do though invariably this is what it comes down to. As our world spirals further off the rails, conversations like this become more frequent, and

I say and do this knowing full well it is going to be kicking a hornets nest. I will be called all sorts of autocrat, tyrant, dictator, just for curtailing in the most minute way people's ability to chastise those less fortunate than themselves. And I am okay with that. I try to build and foster a community that is tolerant and understanding of all, as expressed in a universal appreciation for the quick fix sound-free video we all know and love. You all who will complain and threaten, and report and unsubscribe, know I am not taking away your ability to make and build and foster a community dedicated solely to that - sharing stories about that one time a homeless, displaced, or otherwise marginalized person did something untoward and how you know feel justified in despising them all. By all means make a subreddit for just that and all of you go there and pat each other on the back for sharing that view point. You may simply not do so here in this space.

TL; DR: if your charitable sense had a breaking point of running afoul one time before it evaporated, it was not charitable and it made no sense. No one is forcing you to help. If you thought you were helping, but then altogether stopped because of some negative interaction, you were only doing so because you felt forced to, not because you wanted to. Don't try to take credit for as having been charitable, that one time, when you have long since stopped. People who truly help marginalized communities do so whether they get thanks for it or not. The thing you're all missing is that if you stuck around after a reception like this, you would see and hear the apology and remorse that these kids (or the person in your own personal anecdote) expressed. It would bring it all full circle that they do need help, do appreciate help, and do regret doing ungrateful shit like this. Those who do shit like this need more help, not less. But like I said, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. If you don't want to help anymore because of "that one time..." fine, sit back and relax and let those who know how and why to help take it from here.