We need to stand against hate in Greater Victoria. In recent weeks, we’ve heard about a Sikh family in Saanich harassed with racist and hateful messages left on their vehicles. More recently someone set fire to a Ukrainian Catholic parsonage in Victoria while the priest and family were asleep. The children needed to jump from the second floor in order to be rescued and one child was injured. It’s a reminder that we need actively to stand against hate in our communities beyond the tepid “all are welcome” messages we tend to espouse whether in faith communities, schools, work places, etc. Evidently, not all are welcome. So, we need actively to disrupt messaging and acts of hate that threaten and terrorize racialized people, queer folks, religious minorities, disabled people, and ethnic groups.
People with ill intent see it as easy pickings to attack marginalized people in predominantly white and affluent communities like Greater Victoria. We are a polite society and value people protecting the status quo. We don’t like naming acts of hate as hate. We chafe at calling out racism and queerphobia. As though naming the evil somehow brings it into existence. Better to be polite and not name the thing itself, but just to smooth things over and carry on as though nothing happened. The polite society approach itself becomes a form of gas lighting, denying the lived reality of people suffering the effects of hate.
Another common tactic is scapegoating. In the comments sections online, when hate incidents are covered in the news I see people opine that Victoria has gotten more dangerous in the last decade or so. These comments feel like oblique attacks on homeless folks and people struggling with addictions, often blamed for whatever social ills befall us rather than looking at root causes. People struggling with access to housing, healthcare, and food belong here and are worthy of our support.
When hate acts are on the rise it’s often because as a society we’ve become more tolerant of letting them happen without consequences. Norms shift over time, sometimes rapidly. When we let our guards down, suddenly a hate crime we found morally repulsive a short time ago becomes accepted when not enough people speak up and say something.
What if we call a thing what it is. Call racism, racism. Call queerphobia, queerphobia. Call an attack on a religious group just that. When we call a thing what is is, it becomes easier to take action. It becomes easier to accompany and stand alongside neighbours needing our support. It becomes easier to disrupt a hateful act in progress when we’re already used to calling a thing by it’s name.
The good news here is that we can turn the tide back against this rise of hate acts through collective action. Together we can call things by their name. We can disrupt hate when we see it. We can risk feeling uncomfortable in front of coworkers, fellow students, and neighbours, but the results will be worth it. Without taking this moral leap, we cannot build a more loving world in which we yearn to live.
Our homework for this week is to stay attuned to the racist or sexist joke that too often gets a pass. What if we don’t let it pass, but simply say, “I don’t get what’s funny. That joke makes me feel uncomfortable.” Repeated disruptive acts help turn the tide towards a world rooted in love.
Lyndon Sayers is co-pastor at Lutheran Church of the Cross, Victoria.
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking, HERE: https://www.timescolonist.com/blogs/spiritually-speaking
* This article was published in the print edition of the Times Colonist on Saturday,March 30th 2022
