Last week the Vancouver Sun reported that Dan Rather was in town with a news crew to focus on the drug and crime infested neighbourhood of the Downtown Eastside.
With the 2010 Olympics, this international attention becomes inevitable according to the report. Worse yet, Vancouver brags about being the best place on earth, reminds everyone of the most livable city ranking, and all the while we have actually done LESS about the mounting tragedies of the Eastside stories.
So what of it? Dan Rather sniffs out the juicy stories that help his career. Local reporters jump on the bandwagon. Special interest activists scream, “I told you so.” And all the same, the problem persists, will persist, and also continues to exist in many areas of the world. Why single out Vancouver now? And who has the answers?
Reading this news story, many contrasts and contradictions are evident. As a reader, I know there is truth, and I see the hypocrisy even evident in the reporting. For one thing, isn’t it ironic that it takes a visit from Dan Rather to see more focus in our own local papers. Yes, we do write pieces from time to time, but how do we decide what bandwagon to jump on and when?
Looking at the issues, I concur with the struggle the city has with trying to find solutions to a very deeply involved issue. It isn’t simply the 70% hepatitis C rate, and 30% HIV rate. It isn’t simply the drug addictions and consequent crime. The issue runs much deeper in the psyche of a population.
Virtually every cause-and-effect thread of a life can lead back to instances that have crippled the development and/or well-being of the affected populace. It is the root issues that send people on these paths of destruction that need a long-term strategy, and all that is ever focused on fixing what is visible to the eye according to the papers and politicians’ statements read.
Years of being involved with the employment sector and the helping professions, the obvious is not the popularized versions reported in the papers. The reality is deeper. People are broken, have an unhealthy relationship with themselves and an unhealthy perception of themselves. Often, these ideas of identity are fed by the crap that runs downstream from a society of affluence, that is ignorant to the travesties and hardships that are some people’s lives.
Education is key to solving the problem. Education of the human spirit, the human psyche, the development and/or retardation of emotional intelligence due to life events, and more importantly, a good look at the systems of society that actually cause more harm than good in certain population segments.
These aren’t hard and fast concrete proofs, just some closely observed insights after years of exploration while addressing a lot of what I was taught to believe. That phrase alone is worth having all of us take a good look: It is what I was taught to believe. And yet, the curious-minded might discover much more simply by asking, “What else?”