Strive for inclusion

No good will come of this. Police departments in Halifax and Toronto have announced they will withdraw from Pride Parades in their respective cities. They are not stepping back because they want to. Rather, they are withdrawing because segments of the LGBTQ communities in those cities don’t want them there. In Toronto, that segment is dominated by Black Lives Matter. In Halifax, it’s less clear, in fact Halifax Pride hasn’t said specifically what the concerns are that led to discussions that culminated with Chief Jean-Michel Blais announcing police would not take part officially. In both cases, police voluntarily withdrew to avoid inflaming conflicts within the LGBTQ and communities at large.

The irony of Pride organizers making exclusionary decisions when members of the LGBTQ community have suffered from exclusion themselves shouldn’t be lost.

The bottom line is that an identifiable police presence wasn’t welcome in either parade.

That sentiment may be understandable to a point, but it is still wrong and ultimately unwise. Exclusion is never a sound strategy, except in extreme cases. If police are indeed a part of the problem, as they are by their own acknowledgment, how do policies of systemic exclusion help? If anything, the very public shunning of a police presence creates more distance, and possibly animosity where none existed before.

In fairness, these exclusions don’t mean police and LGBTQ communities in either city have given up talking and working together to try and make things better. Those things are happening.

But this was an opportunity to display unity and tolerance rather than exclusion. Sadly, an opportunity missed.