The Fault in Empathy

I want to tell you all the story of my time at Potluck. I want to teach you about the Downtown Eastside. But I have never felt more hopeless in terms of language. There are people in this very city who don't understand. There are people in this very city who don't understand. There are people in this city who keep their vision narraow, who believe that if you shut your eyes for long enough the problem goes away.

There is an entire world worth of people that believe that Canada is the paradise of the world.

There are peoplewill share their experience- myself included- and somehow, words that break my heart, fall empty and flat, meaningless. That is not say my audience are thoughtless, or careless nor that they even lack empathy.

In fact they are the exact opposite, my audience are intelligent, they are thoughtful and they are empathetic. And that is exactly the problem.

We have all seen a homeless person before.

We have all been hungry.

Most of us have had an alcoholic drink.

BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME.

Poverty is not the same accross countries. I cried at the child beggars in Cambodia and my nose shrivels at the smell of urine in England. But the poverty here is different, the smell here is different and their hunger is different.

We are all human. We all deserve rights. We all deserve respect. We all deserve dignity.

But: 'Beggars cannot be choosers'.' Right?

What if they NEED to be choosers? What if their liver is failing? What if they are having a hyper/hypo (diabetic fit- for lack of a better word)? What if the pesticides in the fruit interact with their chemotheraphy or HIV treatment?

Go ahead. Ask me about the downtown eastside. I can quote the statistics. I won't ever forget them.

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