The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

By: Lori Harito

Here's what I know from walking around with a camera and video recorder:
he Redevelopment of Regent Park is a huge issue, and one that will always be filled with controversy, and mixed with joy or sadness depending on whom you speak with.

And that’s exactly the main thing I’ve learned in the mere four months of walking around Regent Park and filling my sheltered suburban life with an alternative point of view. That depending on whom you speak with you will get different sides to a story, or sometimes you won’t get a side at all.
For example there’s some people in Regent Park such as Tarak, my first subject of the feature who are more than happy and proud to be having a redevelopment of their community. Then there’s Sean Purdy who doesn’t see it as a solution whatsoever.
However, amongst all this confusion, thoughts and opinions, everyone knows one thing: That the best must happen for those in the community. But there is also something else that I’ve found out, a commonality that no matter where you come from people will agree on – youth, and children in Regent Park are highly affected and influenced the most by what they see and hear about their redeveloping area.

In my research and my interviews with people, this is the one thing that has always managed to come up. The one thing that all the different interview subjects have been able to agree on is that youth are affected by everything that happens in Regent Park. When there’s a shooting immediately the response is to blame it on youths and youth gang. When there’s any type of violence, the only people who seem likely to have done it are the children.

But when will people wake up and smell the positive things about youth?
Like the Tarak’s of the world who take a negative and turn things into a positive. Who use the resources and make something of themselves, and create an avenue in which to get education from. Or the kids of Regent Park Focus and Regent Park TV who are using an alternative media source to voice their opinions and thoughts, and going out in the community to speak about it.

And when that violence does happen, and the youth are in the midst of it, should the adults not step back a bit and take a look at themselves for what has happened? After all, these youth have come from somewhere, they have been influenced by something have they not? Are the adults standing around them, pointing an accusatory finger not the ones who should be blamed? After all, adults are the ones creating T.V shows that depict hard drama, shocking violence and crimes that children pick up on.
Adults are the politicians who do not support or stand up for young people, who instead of pumping money into recreational centres and after-school activities choose to take money away and shut them down, or reduce the hours. These adults should be giving children a positive space to go to after school, not wasting their money on corrupt scams and politicians in power.
Why is it so necessary to glamorize all the negatives that children are doing? Why can’t we be empowered by the positive?
And even though youth compromise about one-fifth of the population in Canada, they are also the most susceptible to sexual assault – at about 61 per cent. And yet 1/5 of all violent crimes are committed against youth under 17.

Overall, from Regent Park I will take away the knowledge that this is a community, and no redevelopment project, or media stereotypes are going to take that away from them.