December 15, 2010
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Ready yet
"Megaphone is a magazine sold on the streets of Vancouver by homeless and low-income vendors. Vendors buy the paper for 75 cents and sell the magazine to customers by donation. All money from the transaction goes into the pocket of the vendor."
Most of the writing in Megaphone are by Downtown Easide residents (DTES is Canada's poorest postal code). I bought a copy from Patrick Doyle (image) a couple weeks ago and I think the most stunning thing for me was the realization that homeless people could write beautiful poetry and intelligent articles.
I'm pretty much an "out" activist by now (thanks social media). I've been called self-righteous and I feel like a stickler a lot of the time around my depoliticized friends, but I don't pretend that I'm not still a tool of patriarchy, of racism, sexism, ableism, classism, capitalism. I can't help that I reflect the values of the society in which I was born, but I'm learning.
I think it's fitting that every day my bus to SFU goes from West Vancouver (the rich part of town) all the way through DTES and then back into another rich area (my school). I think it's fitting that I study corporate media systems and a Megaphone vendor is at my bus stop every morning.
Sometimes I entertain the thought that some universal power is telling me exactly why I'm here. And it makes me feel brave.
Comments (2)
That would be a good publication to read. I read books to homeless children that would be a switch to read what the homeless write.
@seedsower - Beth you are all sorts of amazing. If you like I can send you a copy