Last week thousands of people across Canada donned pink shirts to raise awareness for Anti-Bullying Day.
Great as the message of the day was, it didn’t seem to take too long before the moral was forgotten.
While originally geared towards students as a reminder to be kind to their fellow peers, it’s evident that several adults could benefit from the lesson as well.
The annual pink shirt movement, which has grown to a global event, originated in Berwick, N.S. when students wore pink in a show of solidarity to Grade 9 student Chuck McNeill who was bullied for wearing pink. That was back in 2007. As last week’s show of support showed, the day is still going strong with countless schools, organizations and businesses celebrating the day.
But one need only check the comments on some of the biggest news stories of the day to see there’s still a long way to go towards respecting each other’s differences. It’s not always the anonymous messages on an online forum either-though those rarely reflect the best of society.
As news of the novel coronavirus, now more commonly referred to as COVID-19, continues to dominate the headlines, there’s been no shortage of people who wish to pin the blame for the spread of the disease on the entire Asian community. A CBS news affiliate reported on Feb. 14 that a 16-year-old in California’s San Fernando Valley was physically attacked by fellow students at his high school claiming the boy-of Asian-American descent-had the COVID-19 virus. Reports say they had no other reason to believe he had the virus, but rather targeted him because of his ethnic background.
That report is just one of a growing number of cases of discrimination that seem all too common as fears relating to the virus continues to spike.
Many Canadians certainly aren’t model citizens when it comes to using news headlines to justify bullying, either. Protests across the county in support of those opposed to the pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory drew the ire of several Canadians. Many saw it as a chance to rehash tired, outdated and misguided conceptions of all Natives, regardless of whether they were even involved in the dispute or not. Calls for violence against those peacefully protesting were disturbing but unfortunately all too common during a three week span that showcased an ugly side of Canada that is still very much alive in 2020.
Hopefully this isn’t the message that gets passed onto the next generation.
Re-tweeting an anti-bullying message on social media is great, but ultimately does little to further the cause.
Wearing pink once a year is ultimately empty unless it’s backed up with 364 days of action.
-Adam Prudhomme