I read Michael Maslen’s recent letter defending Councillor Kyle Sampson and I was prepared to criticize both of them once again for callousness and cruelty. But my god, I’m exhausted. I’m so tired of getting down on my knees and begging for compassion and decency, because the truth is I have no doubt that Councillor Sampson and Mr. Maslen have compassion and decency in every cell of their bodies already.
So we could keep this up, we could go round after round in this fight over the moral high ground. But what will that get us, except another few months, then another few generations, of hurt and indignation?
I know we can do better, Michael. You can do better at understanding that crime is a product of poverty and desperation, and that responding with harsh measures and violence just continues the terrible cycle. I can do better at understanding that your concerns are real and justified, that businesses deserve to operate and prosper freely, that people should be prevented from hurting others and held accountable when they do. The city can do better at using its resources to solve the problems that create crime instead of harassing and abusing the people they assume are responsible for it.
The world is in crisis right now. Climate change, wealth inequity, depressed wages, inflated costs of living, the housing catastrophe, the long legacy of colonial violence... It makes sense that we’re all worried. And it makes sense that we’re angry. But anger is a trickster, and the anger we feel at each other is a distraction from the anger we should be feeling at the systems that made things this way.
I have too much faith in the human imagination to believe that making things tolerable for most is the best we can aspire to. I believe a better world is possible, and I believe that name-calling and fighting and showing up to destroy people’s homes with bulldozers and then repeatedly appealing Supreme Court decisions asserting people’s right to be treated like human beings are not the way to get there.
Anger is a trickster, but it is also powerful. Imagine what we could accomplish if we used that power to remake the world together, instead of to ‘get tough’ on the people who’ve ended up with the fuzzy end of this particular lollipop.
Julian Legere
Prince George
