Quote:
Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek
I think we all forget that it’s truly the people in Downtown and the North End that are and will be suffering the most from these crime waves in the foreseeable future. This miniscule minority of vagrants roaming around is only hurting the small businesses and lives of the large working class community present in these neighborhoods. It’s not us who are quite frankly mostly in the suburbs providing an outside opinion on this matter that are losing our quality of life. Decades of underfunding services, amenities, and infrastructure in these areas in favour of the South is rearing its ugly head. It’s basically the Canadian version of redlining and it’s disgusting. Of course as a visible minority or Indigenous person you’re just expected to deal with it. A lot of the posts here seem to come from a background of white privilege who haven’t had to face the realities for all of us with no political clout have just thought of as second nature to their lives. Or on a broader scale even realized what the world is truly like outside of your western Eurocentric bubble. For those of us here who have truly lived in poverty such as myself I’m telling you it is much harder to “get out of the hood” then people are led to believe because the whole system and in some cases your support network is completely against your progression or want a piece of the pie. Then there’s the exceptional talents in the area who get unrealistic expectations placed upon them because the outlook is so bleak otherwise. There’s just so much pressure with very little support.
Think about this. How different would your life and the perception of your future be if you were to grow up in the North End or Downtown rather then one of our suburbs? Seeing those shards of glass, homeless people, boarded up windows, crater sized potholes everywhere, and crime would you believe there is a bright future ahead? I even ask myself if I stayed and grew up on Burrows and Sinclair rather then moving to St. Vital and later Bridgwater how would I have turned out.
I remember there was a Vice documentary about the gangs in Winnipeg 7 years ago and the gang leader correctly predicted the illicit activities would only get further rampant because the writing was virtually on the wall. Kids are hyper aware of their surrounding and we’ve as a city failed the youth in the inner city by allowing these areas to become so dilapidated. Low and behold we have gotten ourselves into the situation we have today.
Personally I will continue to be visiting areas like the Downtown, Forks, and North End often because if you treat the residents as equals and educate yourself on reconciliation you won’t be surmised to this type of behaviour. Of course this is anecdotal but I’ve been to the Forks and North End about 4-5 times in the last 2 weeks for volunteer work and just for fun honestly and nothing has happened to me and I’ve not once felt unsafe. What I see is a lot of people in the community addressing the problem and trying with what little power they have to truly improve the area and create a brighter future for the youth.
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Thoughtful comment, thanks. I share the frustration of many posters but, as a criminologist, I can say that "tough on crime" approaches tend to be pretty ineffective at actually reducing crime. They make for good slogans, and they feel satisfying, but we need to address root causes. We can't simply police our way out of this.
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