I'm writing to express my concerns about this article in particular.
The article begins with "The Surrey resident lit a cigarette during the flight, and refused to wear his mask as directed".
Is it really necessary to highlight the city where the resident is from right from the start? I've noticed a pattern directing mostly negative articles written about Surrey. Sure some positive, but when the negative hits it hurts and just adds fuel to the never ending hateful fire and derogatory jokes about Surrey.
I live here and it's a beautiful city with good people and happy families. A lot of negative press hurts Surrey's reputation, jokes or otherwise. It's a growing city with growing pains, but we don't need to be reminded of that. A city shouldn't be judged on pockets of negative neighborhoods (like Whalley or Newton). If a city should be judged that way, then we should judge Vancouver and direct attention to the horrible conditions in East Hastings, Gastown, and the Joyce Collingwood areas. We should judge Vancouver by it's systemic racist attitudes and poor attention to help it's underprivileged and handicapped classes.
If you do continue to write negative press about Surrey please create a new section called "Surrey is the Worst" or "Surrey Sucks" and direct your biased, ignorant readers to gorge on poor journalism and Vancouver propaganda. I'd be happy to contribute to that section by highlighting stories specifically on the mentally ill residents of Whalley. The meth labs in Newton. The Indo-Canadian gangs of Strawberry Hill. I'd forget there are beautiful parks and neighborhoods like Tynehead, Fraser Heights, Sullivan Heights and South Surrey. I'd forget about our food banks, our sustainable thinking city hall, our drive to improve the lives all of our citizens by building better infrastructure and affordable housing. I'd forget all that because Surrey, after all, sucks. Everyone who ever lives here is the equivalent of the silly "Florida Man" (see reddit for reference). All 520,000 of us who call Surrey home.
I'll continue to read your news press, in spite of my concerns. Don't worry. I'm just a tired Surrey resident putting up with all this negative feedback and really dumb jokes about my amazing, forward thinking city.
Sincerely,
Roan Hidalgo
Surrey Resident (Whalley)
