Nicole Hoar, 25
When you look at this picture, what do you see? Is she familiar? What part do you think she plays in society? Obviously, if she is the main element to my blog, she must be of some importance. A woman in power, maybe? A civil rights activist? Because she stars in my writing she must be an influential part of some sort of community but perhaps not. It is that specific type of common assumption that keeps women like her out of the papers because she in fact seems to be not too important for people to be aware of. Now, that may not be entirely the case but those in power, or at least those who have the power to distribute information, may not have that view-point but are aware that that is how society has come to operate. It may be subconscious to most and not to some others and no matter how insistent we are about making everyone an equal in the definition of a human being, there are still those who really hold no interest to some and very little to others. So why would an editor, let’s say, be inspired to talk about this type of person when what they’re most preoccupied about is selling newspapers? Broadcasting the story that sticks.
The Highway of Tears, for the last decade, has been a long stretch of road between Prince George and Prince Rupert where countless women, all of Aboriginal descent, have up and disappeared. It’s these precise women that have somehow escaped the publication other missing women cases could almost impossibly avoid. So many lives have been unaccounted for and mysteriously very few were even aware of that fact. It’s a question of humanity; apparently there are those who are newsworthy and those who are not. When we’ve been able to reach such a high level of information absorption, it’s hard to perceive that there are such predominant subconscious biases that, let’s say, a reporter can cater to stories that they would assume one would want to read. But when has reading about misery and loss become an act of appetite? When has one story of death become more important than the death of another? We have been irrevocably drawn up in the constant measure of stature; the impervious pattern of “important people”.
Nicole Hoar was 25, 5′ 9”, and about 130lbs. Occasionally wore her dark hair in a high pony tail and had blue eyes and glasses. Was last seen carrying a purple and black backpack and wearing beige Capri pants with a red long sleeved shirt. She was carrying an olive green shoulder bag with an orange dragon on it. She was last seen heading west from Prince George, hitchhiking to Smithers on June 21, 2002.
She’s been missing for a good 7 years now and how often have you seen her as the main element on the 11 o’clock news?
