The Hungover Pundit

What We’re Doing Wrong

I’ve noticed some worrisome trends in the anti-hate movement in Hamilton and I feel that its time to address some of those concerns before they grow too big to handle. I’m going to start with a caveat: This isn’t directed any any specific individual. If you feel like I’m talking about you, well, suppress the urge to be outraged and ask why you feel singled out. It’s not my intention to upset folks, but there are issues developing within the movement that need to be addressed.

I’m also going to add a second caveat: This is not about me virtue-signalling, which is nine-times-out-of-ten a pejorative term used by the alt-right and other bad-faith actors in order to shut down legitimate criticism and necessary self-examination. I’m speaking, throughout, as a white cis-male activist who’s got twenty years of experience in progressive circles, and mea culpa, I still fuck up more often than I’d like.

This post is intended as constructive criticism, with a definite emphasis on constructive. But it still needs to be said and from the basis of someone with experience, I’m going to step forward and say it. And frankly, if it pisses you off then it pisses you off… but do us both the courtesy of honestly examining why.

First, let me address what we’re doing right: We’re keeping the pressure on the fascists. We’re refusing to allow fascists, racists, homophobes and other organized hate groups uncontested access to public spaces in Hamilton and elsewhere… and while it might seem like a sisyphean task, it’s an essential one. The hate groups are trying to outlast us; we simply cannot let that happen.

Police and Trust

It’s been a disheartening couple of days in progressive Hamilton politics. First, Hamilton Police Chief Eric Girt went on CHML’s Bill Kelly Show and gave an absolutely appalling interview which featured the chief, when asked about the HPS’ relationship with the LGBTQ+ community, promoting and supporting the worst sort of homophobic stereotypes of queer people. It’s just… wow. If you care to listen — and I admit that I couldn’t get through the whole segment — the relevant portion of the interview starts about 22:45 if you click the link above, but his comments referenced public sex, pedophilia and the rather asinine complaint that police are actually quite tolerant because they even protect demonstrators that have signs “that say Eff The Police.”

The response from the LGBTQ+ community was immediate, loud, and justifiably upset. Chief Girt has since issued a patently insincere “apology” which notably failed to include any substantive commitment to doing better, just the usual — and it has become routine by now — increasingly hollow claim that the HPS is committed to repairing the relationship with the LGBTQ+ community.

I’m going to repeat myself here but I think it bears repeating: Any attempt to repair that relationship is going to require a genuine action. To start: dropping all charges against the Pride defenders. Arrests of the actual violent hate group members which attacked Hamilton’s Pride. A genuine and sincere apology to the LGBTQ+ community for deliberately withholding police protection from Pride. And, it’s become clear, the resignation of Police Chief Eric Girt who has not only failed in his professional duty to an absurd degree but who clearly holds homophobic and transphobic prejudices that have no place in a modern police force.

We cannot move forward when it’s obvious that the police chief lacks the slightest amount of respect for or understanding of the LGBTQ+ community.

Working In Solidarity

It was another chaotic weekend in Hamilton as hate groups once again took over the forecourt at Hamilton City Hall. This time it wasn’t the Yellow Vests, whose dwindling numbers have scattered around the city in increasingly ill-attended and ineffective demonstrations, but instead the Soldiers of Odin & their co-nouns the Wolves of Odin.

At around eleven on Saturday morning word came out over various social media platforms that a large group of Nouns of Odin had showed up in their branded leather BDSM bottoming-vests, and were acting aggressively toward the small number of No Hate in the Hammer counter-protesters, including women and children. Officers from Hamilton Police Service were present, of course, but multiple reports state they concentrated more on herding the No Hate crowd into a corner than actually policing aggressive and violent neo-Nazis, who were allowed to freely move among the anti-hate counter-protesters, to the detriment of order and safety.

The social media callout included an urgent request for more counter-protesters to make their way to City Hall and the community began to turn out almost immediately, including, and very much to her credit, Ward 1 councillor Maureen Wilson, who left a family event on Locke Street in order to attend at the forecourt. (My spouse and I considered driving into the city, but it’s an almost hour-long trip each way and we assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that we’d not have been able to make it in time to contribute.)

Community and Betrayal

I’ve always been interested in how communities work. Like, in the sociological sense: people coming together, more or less spontaneously, to do stuff and support causes and just generally be together. You know, basic human interaction stuff.

I think part of my interest stems from the experience of being very much on the outside during high school. Some kids were popular, some weren’t, and I was very emphatically on the “not popular” side of that line. Like many smart but awkward teenager males, I therefore tried to cultivate an air of dispassion and sneering superiority at the horrible microcosm of society which is the standard high school environment… in short, I was a snotty teenage douchebag. (No wonder I didn’t get invited to parties.) Thankfully, I mostly grew out of it.

But one of the residual effects has always been this interest in how and why people interact the way they do. I find it fascinating, even when I’m one of the people doing the interacting. Or perhaps especially. In any case, the way people self-organize into communities, their contributions to and the demands they make on them, are just plain fascinating — especially when those communities face challenges, doubly so when those challenges come from within, and triply (is that a word?) so when they come from the nominal authorities within the community.

ACAB

It’s been a very busy Labour Day weekend in Ontario, especially on the anti-hate activism front. The ARC collective has put together an excellent summary, so I’ll just link to it here rather than re-cap it, but there is one thing that isn’t listed in that summary because the news just came out this morning: Hamilton is permitting infamous white nationalist and Holocaust-denier Paul Fromm to address city council on the issue of “free speech.”

Fromm, you may remember, has been repeatedly banned from Parliament Hill in order to — and this is a direct quote — “to preserve the dignity and integrity of the House.” And yet, Hamilton City Council sees fit to grant this literal Nazi the privilege of addressing council complaining that racists and homophobes might be denied their free speech.

That’s Fromm on the right, in the White Pride World Wide t-shirt. Charming.

That’s right. A neo-Nazi gets to address council to complain that a plan to prevent violent hate groups from using city space is a “Free Speech issue.” Hell, it’s not even a plan yet, city council has been dragging it’s damn feet on the whole issue all summer while the Yellow Vests and the Whichever-Nouns-of-Odin have been demonstrating, threatening and occasionally assaulting counter-protesters… often with the apparent support and assistance of the Hamilton Police Service.