Tragedy

We live sheltered lives. As teenagers in an affluent suburb, we are generally protected from the evils of the world. There is virtually no crime or destruction in town unless we cause it, and it is only out of boredom that we do that. Otherwise, the only time we are ever exposed to the darker side of life is when we go downtown to Queen & Spadina, and feel violated because a squeegee kid asked for some spare change. What is my point through all of this? We don’t care anymore. We have all become desensitised and indifferent to suffering. I didn’t realise this until I read a recent story in the papers, which was then followed up by some startling revelations at school the next day. You may have heard about the West Credit girl who drowned after the boat she was on capsized on the way back from a party. Generally, I will read a story like this, say to myself, “That’s too bad”, and then move on. With this particular case, however, my interest didn’t stop at the end of the page.

For the sake of tact, I won’t use any names. The people involved have gone through enough already (charges are pending), and if you really need to know, you can find the article in The Mississauga News or The Toronto Star. This article isn’t about details. This article is about the small net that makes up the teenagers of Mississauga. The sign outside of town says that there are 463,000 people, and that’s out of date, but the fact is, among the youth, we pretty much all know each other indirectly. There’s a famous statistic that says everyone is separated by six people. That is, to say, that I know someone who knows someone else who knows you, so we are separated by two people. And that’s probably as far as you will have to go in Mississauga. To get back to the point, the girl who drowned went to West Credit, and I go to Woodlands. I don’t know a single, solitary student at West Credit, but I shared several things with this girl, who I have never met. Not only do I know the driver of the boat, but I used to play hockey with her boyfriend, who valiantly tried to save her. I used to go to parties thrown by his brother, and both of them would always be there. Not only that, but the girl used to share a bus stop with one of my friends on my bus. Sure, a lot of this is coincidence, but that’s exactly my point. I bet if you looked at the names and details of the case, you’d find yourself connected as well. I don’t share any common interests with those involved, and I haven’t really seen them in a couple years, but it got me thinking: how many people have been affected by this tragedy? It has to add up to at least a couple of thousand in Mississauga alone. Think about it. Every single student at West Credit heard about the incident over the p.a., and a lot of students at Woodlands know the Woodlands kids involved. When you add families and friends of the victim and the other boaters, it’s a pretty substantial amount of people. My point here, is that we have to stop flipping by these articles in the paper. We are a small group who need to protect each other, because we can’t just continue assuming someone else will. That’s the problem with society today. We all assume that someone else will step up to the plate and do something, but what if we were the ones who were supposed to step up? More than likely, some sort of fund will be established for the girl’s family, and that’s great, but why aren’t we setting up a fund, too? It’s not like there is some sort of cap on charity. I constantly see a lack of sympathy at Woodlands, and it’s so hard to swallow. It seems like the only way teachers can get us to donate to a charity is if we can wear our hats in class, or the last test that everyone bombed will no longer count on our final report card. Why is that? We all have enough money to pay for school books and clothes, and I assume that we all get enough to eat, so why don’t we give some back? 60% of Americans are obese, meaning they eat too much(whether it be because of a medical condition or not). Now think about how many people die from malnutrition in the world every day. What if those 60% only ate what they needed, and gave the rest to those who have none? Another question: how many of you know someone who is from Manitoba, or knows someone who does? Now how much have you given them to recover from the flooding? Just imagine Mississauga was levelled for some reason. Do you have confidence that your British Columbian equivalent would help bail you out? If you don’t think that you contribute enough, then change. Staying the same won’t hurt you, but it will hurt somebody else out there.