Thread by @joannachiu

Racism, addiction and a pandemic: Vancouver bus attack a violent flashpoint of city's long-standing tensions.

Piece by me and @wanyeelii where we try to dive into the complex and entrenched challenges facing our city, that #COVID19 has only exacerbated. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

We chose to discuss the particular vulnerabilities of the East #Vancouver region, a gentrifying but still relatively affordable area that has historically been home to many communities of colour, including low-income elderly immigrants from Asia. thestar.com/news/canada/20… #COVID19

Since the #COVID19 pandemic struck Canada, East Vancouver has seen a spate of suspected hate crimes and incidents against people of Asian descent. The bus attack on a woman who tried to defend two Asian women from verbal abuse is only the latest case. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

A man had jumped on a woman, punching and kicking her multiple times and yanking her hair so hard he removed a “significant” amount, moments after she defended two Asian women. He had shouted something to the effect of, “Go back to your country". thestar.com/news/canada/20… #COVID19

Public concern about racism and violence during #COVID19 seems to have reached a high over the assault on the bus. It didn't help that Canadian singer @bryanadams went on a rant about "bat eating, wet-market animal selling virus-making greedy bastards": thestar.com/news/canada/20…

In a quick turn of events, a day after their public appeal, transit police said they had learned the suspect had died from an apparent drug overdose a week after the incident. They said the man “had no fixed address” and was well-known to Vancouver police. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

This is another reminder of societal problems — poverty, opioid addiction and racism — that have long wounded this city, and which have each in their own way been amplified by the current pandemic (though one is NOT an excuse or always related to another). thestar.com/news/canada/20…

5 years ago, @PtFry was walking his dog when he saw a man yelling racial slurs at elderly Chinese women.

He intervened, but when he turned, "there was this posse behind me. The women were in their tai chi poses and holding up their canes to back me up.” thestar.com/news/canada/20…

This is such a hard story to write. As a country, we're struggling to address these issues. East Vancouver also encompasses the Downtown Eastside, an impoverished neighbourhood where many charities for the homeless and services for drug users are based. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

Responding to the bus attack, MLA @BowinnMa told me:

“We are facing a very real and serious opioid crisis. Thousands of people in B.C. have died from it... Does this excuse the violent race-driven attack he committed? No, it does not.” thestar.com/news/canada/20… @TorontoStar

North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA @BowinnMa posted this video responding to anti-Asian racism in the time of #COVID19 this week. She tried to drive home that racism can come in subtle forms and we all have unconscious biases we need to work on.

https://twitter.com/BowinnMa/status/1260394308013678592

In March, the govt began a safe-supply program that allows clinics to prescribe pharmaceutical substances to drug users as an alternative to the increasingly toxic illegal drug supply. Critics said this was needed, but too late for those who already died. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

"Racism is alive" in the Downtown Eastside, but not being openly discussed because it's so easy for people to malign people living in the margins. @wanyeelii spoke with Christopher Livingstone, founding member of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

Livingstone, who used illicit drugs and was homeless before securing a unit at a BC Housing building, says racism is dished out by many in the Downtown Eastside — sometimes by the very people who experience discrimination themselves. It's very complex. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

Livingstone recognized the suspect of the bus attack as someone who frequented the tent city in Oppenheimer park before officials evicted people earlier this month.

“I’m sad when anyone overdoses in the face of safe supply being rolled out,” he said. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

In the DTES, business owners (some are racialized themselves) will pour buckets of soapy water on Indigenous people sleeping in front of their stores and many members of the Indigenous community believe the police and security guards target them, he said. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

It was hard to write in article form, let alone in tweets, so please give the story a read and we would love to hear your feedback.

When I worked overseas and followed news from Vancouver, I was so distraught over how things seemed to be getting worse.
thestar.com/news/canada/20…

Vancouver is trying to address a spike in hate and overdose deaths at the same time as #COVID19.

@PtFr said governments should keep recognizing economic anxiety, when tendencies such as racism seem to get worse.

Nearly 90,000 people have lost their jobs. thestar.com/news/canada/20…

In the meantime, some people have changed their daily routines. Anita Law decided against going to the grocery store one morning and waited for midday, when she felt safer.

“I never thought that it’d be Vancouver where I felt the least safe." thestar.com/news/canada/20… #COVID19

Other cities around the world have seen a rise in anti-Asian incidents as well, which has prompted widespread soul-searching on how to stop the trend.

In Toronto, an Asian TTC bus driver was harassed by a Caucasian woman for “not looking Canadian". thestar.com/news/canada/20…

I still don't know what a "Moment" is but thank you @EVYSTADIUM for collecting my tweets into a @TorontoStar moment. Feels great to work with colleagues who care deeply about these issues and want to wade into the complexities and avoid simplification. twitter.com/i/events/12617…

We lost @jwints in last year's @starvancouver layoffs. He remains so committed to telling the stories of people that the more fortunate in the city tend to try to ignore. Here's a photo essay about life in the Oppenheimer Park homeless encampment: thestar.com/vancouver/2019…

.@TorontoStar's @nkeung: "The coronavirus goes right to the heart of how they feel they are viewed by the rest of Canada and are often treated as though they are not part of this country, despite having roots here for multiple generations in some cases." thestar.com/news/gta/2020/…

Thank you! We'll keep trying to do better and avoid replicating structures of power imbalances in our stories, because even if the media industry is crumbling... journalists still have a lot of responsibility to try to get things right.

https://twitter.com/melisssm/status/1261716127798960128

"You get tunnel vision. You get locked into those cycles of poverty that lead you to believe that nobody really cares, that nobody is watching."

Powerful interview by @wanyeeli in our story on systemic racism, poverty, addiction: thestar.com/news/canada/20… @TorontoStar #COVID19

"It’s a tricky line, it really is. I’m not saying it’s easy. We have the responsibility to have critical dialogue about things that are happening without enabling the sentiments that group an entire people as though they are all the same." - MLA @BowinnMa thestar.com/news/canada/20…

When an Indigenous woman is told to go back to her country because she sneezed while walking her dog, and the attacker who repeatedly punched her in the face thought she was Asian. citynews1130.com/2020/05/16/man…

So sorry this happened to your daughter, @lheidli1. She's amazing for having spoken up.

https://twitter.com/lheidli1/status/1261811944975224832

Kato 💜

https://twitter.com/lheidli1/status/1262050138765193217