East Side Showdown Reflections

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Reflection - East Side Showdown East side showdown is a documentary taken at "the four corners" (Dundas and Sherbourne). In this part of Toronto there is a mixture of empty lots, condemned or abandoned housing with a mixture of housing that was purchased at a cheap price and refinished. There is a mixture of rooming houses and newly renovated houses which creates a mixture of classes that are now in conflict. I feel it's important to mention that it is the "new comers" or the people that have refinished old buildings that are causing the most upset in this neighbourhood. I learned from this documentary that Toronto East Downtown Residents Association (TEDRA), is basically a white and middle class organization that looks to gentrify the four corners. I feel that they are using their position of power-over (class and race) to further marginalize a community that has existed and the four corners for nearly forty years! So, what does this mean? In short, I feel that we have a part of the poor population that is being excluded from society and face the everyday challenges of systematically being blocked from rights, opportunities, housing, healthcare and social integration. Plus, this community is now having to deal with an organization (TEDRA) that perpetuates the fore mentioned transgressions. I noticed the tactics that TEDRA employ are a standard that privileged society have been using for hundreds of years. The use of coercion by way of political influence such as police harassment, lobbying local politicians, racial profiling and ultimately not acknowledging the root cause of the problem is only part of what I see with this organization doing to displace a struggling poor community. I also feel that TEDRA is blind to the fact that their organization, in part, is responsible for perpetuating the cycle of poverty and homelessness. In other words, I feel TEDRA

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