Opinion: One generation needs to provide safe journey for the next

Back in the 1960s, the Beatles sang All You Need is Love, and another English group, The Troggs, sang Love is All Around, written by lead singer Reg Presley. 

So why is it that here, in 2023, it feels more and more like the opposite of what Presley sang in that latter tune is true. 

It seems everywhere we turn these days we see signs of hatred and intolerance. Whether it’s someone blessing us with the middle finger salute because we maybe forgot to signal our desired left turn, or whether it’s something more serious, like death threats painted on a crosswalk. 

And let’s get this straight, the vandalism to Niagara-on-the-Lake’s rainbow crosswalk is indeed very, very serious. As Enzo De Divitis, chair of Pride Niagara, says elsewhere in this week’s newspaper, every one of the four incidents of vandalism at the corner of Anderson Lane and Mississagua Street since May has been a sign of hate. 

I’m old enough to have been raised during a time when anybody who was different than the majority was likely to experience becoming a repeated target of off-colour jokes, verbal abuse, exclusion and death threats. It was just accepted, sometimes expected, and very, very rarely ever corrected. 

As De Divitis says, if you’re not a part of the marginalized community you often don’t feel the sharp pain of the digs, whether they come from co-workers, friends, family members, or, as he points out was very common until recent years, in movies, television shows and in popular music. 

In my younger years, I knew what I was seeing and hearing around me wasn’t right. After all, when is it ever right to treat another human, whether Black, Indigenous, gay, transgender or in any other way different from you, less than human?

Speaking up back then was difficult, maybe even dangerous.

But marginalized people have a voice in today’s world. We see it in the Black Lives Matter movement, in the work that Pride Niagara does to stand up for the rights of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and in the many organizations that fight for the inclusion of people living with disabilities. 

In my 29 years as a high school teacher, I consider myself fortunate for having worked for the majority of that time at Laura Secord Secondary School, the school that is widely considered to be the most accepting in Niagara of some of these marginalized groups. 

Much of my own learning about the issues faced by those who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+ has occurred directly from working with these bold, brave young teens as they have navigated their way through a world that is often loath to accept them. 

I have seen them stand up and speak out. They helped correct me when I slipped up on their gender identity or their preferred name. I would hazard to say that the lessons these students provided me with will most likely last much longer in my mind than any of the business concepts I taught them will in theirs. 

In fact, maybe that’s the key. Maybe all those anti-pride protesters who stood outside the Niagara Catholic District School Board and District School Board of Niagara offices in June, screaming their hate at parents and their children, should have to spend a day at a school like Laura Secord. 

A day during which they would see the spirit, the energy, the creativity and the bravery of this next generation in action. I believe that experience would make them question their motives for their hatred and wake them up to the value in accepting people for simply who they are. 

I know that actually can’t happen. In fact, it’s probably too dangerous to those students to even suggest such a thing. 

But I believe that this next generation - call them Gen Z or Centennials or whatever you want - will be the ones that effect this change fully.

For now, it’s up to us - the Boomers, Gen X, the Millenials - to do what we can to ensure they have a safe avenue to get there. 

We have to show up and speak out, as Suzin Schiff and about 100 others did last Friday, to let them know that we believe in change, that we believe that all humans are equal and deserve to live without fear, without facing hatred. 

To paraphrase Reg Presley, love can once again be all around us, we have to let it show.