Trafficking in hurtful words

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/04/2024 (725 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a beautiful spring morning in your Winnipeg neighbourhood.

The grass hasn’t started to green yet, the boulevard is still a sea of soupy mud, but the birds are singing and the sun feels deliciously warm on your face. Time to walk the dog.

Next door, a neighbour is carefully raking up last fall’s leaves, all of them damp and uniform-brown, and he’s tipping rake-loads into paper compostable bags.

“Hi, you old pedophile!” you shout to him, waving cheerfully. “Whose kids are you grooming today?”

He stops raking, and stares at you, shocked.

Down the sidewalk you go, the dog eager, pulling at the leash and stopping every few hundred feet to sink his nose into the bounty of spring smells. It’s wonderful not to have to worry about the sidewalk ice anymore, and you don’t even mind the herky-jerk pace of the distracted dog.

Near the corner, new neighbours are unpacking household goods from a rented van. A pair of small children charge up to the inside of the fence around their yard, curious and shy at the same time, the way all kids are, and your dog happily stuffs its muzzle through the fence palings, eager to make new friends.

“This is our Canada,” you say, smiling broadly. “You should go back to where you came from!”

Two young men set down the bookshelves they are carrying and turn towards you, their faces hardening.

OK, so, most likely, none of that actually happened in your neighbourhood today.

And, most likely, you didn’t say any of those hateful things.

But spend any time online, and it most assuredly will happen, if nowhere else than on the fringes of your internet neighbourhood. It may even happen right in the core of that internet space — you may be the one gleefully saying those exact things.

How did we get here?

Obviously, the anonymity of the internet has helped. There is a perverse pleasure in attacking people you don’t even know, especially when the anti-abuse and anti-racism guidelines of social media sites such as X are applied more as if they are mere suggestions than like rules that carry effective penalties.

Children and young adults, let alone the rest of us, must be getting a completely distorted picture of what life is actually like. When you walk out into the world surrounded by strangers — and especially for the first time — how can you help but believe that a significant number of the people around you are hiding hateful beliefs and personal insults? That people are masquerading as good?

It’s hard not to believe that online behaviour has contributed to a general coarsening of public behaviour. There have been public protests for years, suggesting that federal politicians should be voted out of office for their actions. It’s much newer to suggest that they should be hanged or shot — but that kind of language has managed to transfer from being an internet phenomenon to being somehow acceptable.

And it’s not just politicians who are facing unreasonable attacks.

An Ottawa carbon tax protester was filmed this week by a compatriot as he received a $490 ticket for using a megaphone while driving — the protester apparently had no problem publicly shouting at the non-white police officer, “This is our Canada!” And having it posted on line. Yep — the exact same words from higher up on this page.

It’s not so far-fetched after all.

It’s also disgraceful.

There should be a basic rule: if you wouldn’t say it in person, you shouldn’t say it online.

Oh and, by the way, in case it isn’t abundantly clear already, if you would say it in person, you’re the problem.