Confronting racism: We must stay on right path

To punch or not to punch? That is the question. Or, at least, it seems to be, in the whirlpool (cesspool?) of online debate over how to confront neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Is it excusable to meet ideas premised upon violence with fists and batons?

In a civilized society, of course not. Violence begets violence, no matter how theoretically satisfying it might be. In an Ottawa courtroom on Thursday, though, the other way of confronting and countering extremism was on display, in the thoughtful remarks delivered by Ontario Court Justice Peter Griffiths in sentencing a young man who went on a hateful vandalism spree last year, scrawling graffiti on Ottawa’s houses of worship.

And, in the thoughtful responses of those wronged.

“The safest outcome for our community is that (the young offender) alters his world views,” said Andrea Freedman, the president of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

Quite so. In a small way, what played out in the Ottawa courthouse was a microcosm of what’s happening elsewhere, from the far-right fever swamps of the internet, to the Tiki-torch bearing marchers in Virginia, to the awful racism against Indigenous people in Canada.

“This is not Charlottesville,” Griffiths said. “This is an act by a single man.”

That’s true in the most literal sense. But it ignores, perhaps, the wider prevalence of racism in Canada. Painting Nazi slogans on a church building is not something that happens in isolation. “It is still significant that we recognize that this society has elements of racism and hatred in it. It’s not just isolated; there is something systemic and co-ordinated about it,” said Parkdale United Church’s Rev. Anthony Bailey after the hearing.

And in this case, it didn’t happen in isolation. The young man, who’s now 18 but was 17 at the time and cannot be named because he was convicted as a young offender, picked up his views on white power websites. Just as it takes a community to rehabilitate someone, it takes a community to drag someone down into racism and hatred.

Griffiths said he believes the young man is on his way to rehabilitation, and he has since apologized for what he did.

“I think you have made a lot of progress in the last six months,” Griffiths told the young man on Thursday. “It’s important, though, that we stay on that path now.”

This is the case not just for one troubled young man. It’s the case for society more generally; confronting racism is an ongoing, collaborative process. It’s not as flashy as a fist fight, but that’s the best way to see real, meaningful change.