A few days ago, tire tracks etched on the rainbow sidewalk in Prescott made the news. The mayor of the community said that it was “impossible to interpret the action this evening as anything but a statement of hatred toward the LGBTQ community.” Seems like a bit of an overreaction right, for something that visibly could have been accidental?
While the article does mention that this this particular crosswalk was previously vandalized a year ago, it omits that this is part of a larger pattern: the last few years have seen the rainbow crosswalk defaced in Miramichi, Bowmanville, Dawson Creek, Salmon Arm, Calgary, Surrey, Coldstream, White Rock, Sylvan Lake, Duncan, Grandfalls-Windsor, Saskatoon, New Westminster, Medicine Hat, Burnaby, Courtenay, Richibucto, Fort Langley, Barrie, Vernon, Woodstock, Regina and Port Elgin.
This messaging by straight cis men is often done within hours of the crosswalk being erected, and often on multiple occasions (six times in the case of Miramichi). The men responsible write messages like “shoot a faggit” (Calgary), “Make S.A. straight again” (Salmon Arm), “Queer” (Vernon), or spraypaint nazi symbols (Burnaby). This is also within a larger context of discrimination being an ongoing problem in society at large and events centering non-cis-men throughout the country being disrupted by white nationalists.
When the media omits this context, it unwittingly contributes to the popular myth that discrimination is the result of a few bad apples, rather than a systemic problem. Here is why people are responding so strongly to something seemingly so insignificant.
Prescott isn’t the only example. Just this week in Aylmer, the artist who painted a Black Lives Matter mural was threatened by a man with a baseball bat, who then attacked her work with it. Her work was defaced with an “All Lives Matter” message.
Again, the article lacked context. Murals like these keep being defaced with threats of violence; and we saw this in Ottawa just a few years ago. The article didn’t also mention that hundreds of white supremacists were descending on Ottawa a few days later for Canada Day. The people in attendance included armed white nationalists and their messaging was a direct repudiation of black lives matter. In the greater context, racism is a daily problem here for people of colour and indigenous folk – from how they’re treated by police, to medical care, to shopping, to dating sites. Again though, the article presents this through the lens of one isolated incident, with no memory of acts prior.
The media needs to address that prejudicial acts fit within a larger pattern in society. To do otherwise is a disservice to its duty to inform, as it leads readers to believe its yet another isolated incident, and that these dang activists are just too sensitive.