We can’t ‘police away’ uncomfortable feelings
Silencing dissent in Hamilton shouldn’t be confused with solving real problems
Not too long ago Hamilton found its way into the national news for briefly deciding the anarchy symbol was a form of hate speech and demanding that The Tower, a local anarchist organization, remove the symbol from their storefront. Mayor Eisenberg backed the staff decision and was quoted in The Spectator as saying “Certainly the anarchists that have locally presented themselves have done things that would be considered to be inappropriate, so if you tie the two of them together, I would say that’s a symbol of destruction and mayhem and causing a crisis to a particular area. Is that hateful? I think it is.”
More recently we learned that Hamilton city council is looking at changing its rules so anyone who “speaks disrespectfully” of its decisions can be removed from council meetings. But the definition of what “disrespectful” entails is not explained.
Shortly after the anarchy symbol decision made the national news backlash mounted. It became clear that city staff had overstepped in their classification of the letter A in a circle as a form of hate speech. Mayor Eisenberg wisely backed away from his initial statement. Backlash is already growing about the idea of people being barred from council for being disrespectful. Local journalist Joey Coleman brought up the case of Fred Bracken, a well-known agitator in Fort Erie whose ban from his town hall was found unconstitutional by the Appeal Court. It’s very likely Hamilton would find itself in a similar spot should they take the same approach.
Politics is an uncomfortable business. It’s not surprising that some city councillors don’t want to endure the discomfort of having citizens question their actions forcefully or use strong language in meetings. After the political events that took place on Locke Street in early March, where a group of self-described Ungovernables associated with anarchist groups took to the streets in a brief demonstration that damaged several local businesses, many people might find other anarchist organizations make them feel uncomfortable as well. This does not make a political symbol hate speech, and it should not allow council to police meetings to ensure only the right kind of discussion happens. As a society, we shouldn’t turn to the police or write new rules to when we dislike someone’s approach, or feel a person doesn’t belong where they happen to be.
Extreme cases of this would be the manager of the Starbucks in Philadelphia calling the police on the two black men in her store, or more recently “Permit Patty” seeming to call the police on a young black girl selling bottled water. In both of these cases the police were clearly called because the men and the girl in question were making the callers uncomfortable and not behaving appropriately. The callers’ discomfort clearly stemmed from racism.
These extreme examples are from the United States, but the number of instances of driving while black and of wellness checks in Canada say that as a society we’re generally happy with the police keeping our streets safe from difference.
In Hamilton, Dwight Perry with over $30,000 of fines collected from the ACTION Unit is a great example. As Perry’s lawyer slowly gets ticket after ticket dismissed, we need to ask the fundamental question of why this ticketing was happening? Was it because Perry sitting at a corner asking for change was dangerous to the public? Or was it because he was poor, homeless and in public view asking for attention and a bit of help, making people uncomfortable by showing how you can fall through the cracks in our society? As it was clear Perry could not pay the tickets, the eventual result would be that he’d end up in prison for holding his hat out.
Tidying away homeless people and black people and anarchists and making city council meetings more respectful creates an illusion of sameness and control that makes a lot of people feel safe and happy. But it silences dissent and allows injustice to grow.
We need to increase our tolerance for discomfort as a community. Instead of expecting the cause of the problem to be whisked away by someone official, we need to look at the root problems of the discomfort. Is it racism? Is it the reminder of human suffering and being asked to care? Is it ideas and beliefs that challenge the way we look at life?
Let’s stop policing away our uncomfortable feelings and instead create a society that is safe for everyone. Hamilton, with its history of unions, of demanding fair treatment for all, should be able to do this.