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It makes you pause, doesn’t it, when you see swastikas and pointed hoods on the news— today’s news—showing masses of people, fueled by hate and emboldened by a powerful world leader who is sympathetic or, at the very least, fails to properly condemn violent speech and action that is in response, ostensibly, to nothing more than the removal of statues?
And don’t be fooled. Those statues, and the people who would protect them at any cost, exist on this side of the border, too. In Nova Scotia a statue of Edward Cornwallis was covered after protests by the Mi’kmaq nation reminded the public of the founder of Halifax’s bounty for the scalps of their ancestors. This action drew the ire of a group called the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group who felt covering the statue was erasing their history.
Statues are history, sure. But like any recorded history, they only tell the part of the story the people with money and power to erect statues want to tell. If taking down statues that glorify people who encouraged slavery, violence or genocide is disrespectful to history, so is erecting those statues without telling the whole story.
But really, this isn’t about statues. It’s about fear and hatred from a group of people who are outraged at the specter of social equality. People who imagine that without their majority— their supremacy—their lives wouldn’t matter. People who assume a group arguing that black lives matter mean they matter more than white lives, an absurd conclusion to draw from BLM, who are fighting for recognition that for people of colour, the playing field is not level.
They are people who have been consumed by a closed circuit of other people who also hate and also consume fear-mongering propaganda. They are people who have received a platform. And now that they have that platform, we cannot ignore it.
In Quebec City, there are protests against the steady stream of people pouring in from the US, fearing deportation to a hopeless existence in Haiti. La Meute (The Pack) insist they don’t share ideals with white supremacist groups. But a chilling visit to their website, shows the group refers to its various sectors as ‘clans’ and encourages members to post flyers in public places that warn readers of the threat to their land and children and include phrases like “ne laissez pas ces agresseurs faire du Québec une terre d’islam (Don’t let these aggressors make Quebec a land of Islam).”
Racism, xenophobia and other types of hatred have never disappeared. As social rights gain ground for marginalized people, there is always a backlash from groups like these. But what are we seeing today? How dangerous is this?
History repeats itself. We need to wade into the waning memories of those who have survived the worst of humanity for some hint of whether this is the beginning of a major fight, or whether massive, anti-racist responses like the rally in Boston earlier this week are proof enough that we only need to weather this storm.
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