The racism and hate on display during recent far-right rallies have left me feeling sad and uneasy.
The first of the rallies was held in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12.
This past weekend, rallies with similar themes were held in Canada, in Vancouver on Saturday and in Quebec City on Sunday.
These rallies show that racism and bigotry are still present.
The Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville drew hundreds of protestors, carrying Confederate flags and Nazi flags and chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans.
They didn’t even hide their faces.
To counter this message, anti-racism rallies have also been held. However, in Charlottesville, one of the Unite The Right protestors drove a car into a crowd of anti-fascism counter-protestors, leaving one woman dead and 19 people injured.
The far-right events in Vancouver and Quebec City were both small, but the presence of these rallies could not be ignored.
In Vancouver, the far-right rally was organized by World Coalition Against Islam Canada and the Cultural Action Party of Canada, an anti-immigration organization.
Such events should be unthinkable.
I feel uneasy because these far-right rallies were held for the benefit of people like me — white people of European ancestry.
In a New York Times interview before the Charlottesville rally, organizer Jason Kessler said the purpose was to “de-stigmatize white advocacy so that white people can stand up for their interests just like any other identity group.”
And prior to the Vancouver rally, Jason Mills, one of the organizers, also mentioned white pride.
“Nothing wrong with being proud of your race and being white is no exception,” he stated in a post on the rally’s Facebook page.
But I don’t want the support of these organizations.
There is no way I can support or condone any rally, event or organization with a white power or white supremacist message.
And when the Nazi flags and Confederate flags come out, the tone has moved from white pride to full-blown racism.
Prejudice did not begin with these recent rallies, nor will it end with them.
It is not confined to demonstrations by extremists carrying torches, waving flags and shouting harsh slogans.
And it is not confined to race, even though recent rallies have been displays of racism. Bigotry shows itself in racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism and more.
Even here in Summerland and the rest of the Okanagan Valley, one does not need to look too far to realize bigotry and hate are still among us.
The day following the Charlottesville rally, I saw a slur posted on social media, by someone from Summerland. The slur targeted members of a white ethnic group, and it was the second such slur I have seen from a Summerland resident in the span of a week.
Around a month ago, racist graffiti was spray-painted in a West Bench park.
Only a couple of years ago, a sign in Summerland was vandalized with offensive racist slurs.
And over the years, I have heard — in person — some repulsive comments about visible minorities, Muslims, gays and lesbians and others. These comments, some of them quite recent, have been voiced right here, in this community.
They don’t happen often, but they shouldn’t happen at all.
Slurs and graffiti are not in the same league as white supremacist rallies. But derogatory terms and stereotypes can lead to a growing hatred of an identifiable group.
Prejudice starts one person at a time, through words and attitudes.
And it can end in the same way, by avoiding slurs, refusing to repeat offensive jokes and rejecting stereotypes.
John Arendt is the editor of the Summerland Review.