Creating Change in the Community

 The last thing I ever thought I’d do during a global pandemic is go door to door talking to people about racism and asking them to sign a petition urging the township where I live to create legislation to ban the flying of the American Confederate flag.  And yet, that is what I spent the last week and a half doing.

The village where I live is on the shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada.  In the 1800’s the first European settlers showed up here.  They then set to cutting down the thick forests and the townsite of Waubaushene was created for the logging industry.  Once all the trees were cut down, the industry moved on but the houses and some of their inhabitants remained.  Some of these small houses became cottages and some were added onto or replaced entirely.  Some of the village’s residents are here year round and some are summer cottagers.  The small houses are still reasonably priced and so you get a lot of new families buying homes here.  There are many vulnerable people in the community as well including seniors and mentally handicapped individuals.  Although this village has been predominantly white since the European settlers arrived, there are also Metis, First Nation and Black people living here now as well.  And, there is also one man who insists on flying a Confederate flag on his lakeside property.  It is visible from the street and it is eye catching on the boating channel that runs alongside his backyard.  Hundreds of boats a week pass by this symbol of racism and hate.  Many of these people are black and people of colour from the racially diverse city of Toronto, to the south.

We have a small lakeside property, just big enough for a garden and a dock which is one dock away from this flag.  We have watched it fly for three years at least.  It never gets easier to see it.  It feels like a punch to the gut every time for me.  But, apparently it is legal to fly whatever you want on your own property, even flags that create fear and terror in others such as the Swastika.

For reference, the Confederate flag was only a flag for the four years of the American Civil War during the 1860’s.  It has been revived by white supremacists as a racist symbol in latter years although the US military and many other agencies have since banned it.  And here in Ontario, some people are using the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to spread fear and hate.

Earlier this year, a courageous woman in the nearby community of Collingwood decided to do something about the same flag which was being flown in her town.  She started an on-line petition and got 35,000 signatures.  Her town council studied the situation and somehow talked the man into taking down his flag without so far changing any legislation.

This gave people in our community the inspiration to go to our township council to ask for legislation regarding this flag.  They said that they have no jurisdiction over flags and that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would have to be amended to do so.  But, they said, they would study it.  It seems ironic that this same township has jurisdiction over the length of grass on the lawn, the removal of garbage, dog feces, building permits, wild plants (weeds), and so many other things.  But not symbols of hate.  Makes one wonder about what they see as important.

We learned that the mother of two black teens who live across the street from the flag tried to speak to its owner.  The man’s wife answered the door and said that the flag was a joke and that her partner would never take it down.  The mother explained that it wasn’t a joke to her family but to no avail. 

So, some of us decided to get a petition together to urge the council to do whatever it takes, such as joining with other communities who are looking for the same solution, and going to the province and the federal goernment.  My partner and I started the petition out.  We went to the homes of people we knew, people who might be willing to sign the petition just to get practice and courage.  Earlier this year, I took a little on-line course by healer, author and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem on healing racialized trauma and I listened to the audio book version of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.  These two authors helped me to understand that white people have to start talking to other white people about racism and how to dismantle white supremacy.   As long as white people have more privilege then other people, will have less privilege.

       Healer, author and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem

I am not sure that the council will care about a petition, although you never know.  But I did think that this was a good opportunity to start dismantling white supremacy, engage others in being part of the solution and build community at the same time.  After going to the homes of people we knew, we started visiting people we knew just a little.  If we saw people we didn’t know outside of their homes, we would strike up a conversation.

There was the consideration of how to do this during a pandemic.  We wore masks, brought hand sanitizer along for the pen and people’s hands after signing and we social distanced.  This meant donning the masks as we approached the house, knocking on the door and then stepping back ten feet.  Many people were not aware of the flag.  Most were surprised or shocked and most were eager to sign the petition.  A few didn’t sign.  Two people told us that they didn’t sign anything.  One didn’t sign because the owner of the flag was his customer even though he didn’t agree with the flying of the flag.  Many people were happy to see someone doing something about this.

During this week and a half, an on-line story about the flag in our village appeared in two local communities.  Then the local TV station came to do a piece on the flag.  The camera crew got in a boat and filmed the flag in the man’s backyard.  They interviewed two residents of the village and a spokesperson from the township.  The owner of the flag wasn’t home when they visited. The next day, the flag came down.

We will still submit our petition to the township, the province and the federal government because we believe that symbols of hate and terrorism have no place in our community, our country and our world.  As we chatted with people about the petition, we got the impression that people want a safe, welcoming community to live in.  We may never know what exactly prompted the man to take down the flag.  He may well put it up again.  But, we have seeded the idea that the residents can have a voice and can shape the community that they live in.  We have given white people the chance to confront the reality that racism exists in their communities and have given them the chance to participate in asking for change. For the black people in our community who we talked to and who signed the petition, perhaps we have given them the chance to see white people trying to talk to other white people about their racist actions.  And I got to meet more of my neighbours and create a small sense of community over this issue.

A year ago, I would not have thought that this was possible.  But, we are in strange times where new things can happen.  We are indeed writing our new story.