I work with youth. Youth are always resilient, I watched them evolve with us, hide more efficiently, pretend to be ok, and most importantly not have a voice for adults to hear. Despite all that they towed the line for “Canada” and the “world”. I saw them show up burnt out, in their PJs and somehow pretend all this is normal. Seeing them go through this, as someone who supports them also took a toll on me because I could see what they were going through and see how much they were not considered in the choices our government made. Let us consider for a moment, for a time playgrounds were illegal to play on. In fact, I saw a skateboard park fenced off.
Being a man of colour also impacted how I viewed this Pandemic. “Trust the government”. The most hesitant communities for the vaccines were and are communities of colour. For good reason. I watched as the agencies meant to support these communities of colour slowly started demanding they be vaccinated or not be served at all. Instead of having conversations with our communities we told them what to believe and what to do. Tough position to be in as a coloured person. The track record for this is flawed at best.
All in all, what does the pandemic mean to me? It means more questions than answers. It means people being able to know about your choices around your body. It means locking down our economy. It means sacrificing our youth for our elderly. It means looking at a face on a screen and not being able to hug your family. It means a nation divided. It means health. It means looking back on how we treat our bodies and trying to fix it instead of preventing harm. It means burnt out health care workers and a health care system despite all our vaccines still being able to collapse. It means stress, shame, confusion, loss, and growth. It means history. It means I have the privilege of going through change.
Thomas Argueta