It happened here

[sabotabby]

Just yesterday, I found myself arguing with a hippie on Facebook over a photo someone had posted of a man holding up an Islamophobic sign at Yonge-Dundas Square. One of the commenters had suggested that what the man needed was a good elbow in the face, and the hippie self-righteously declared that in the name of FREEZED PEACH, holding a hateful sign was not illegal but elbowing someone in the face was.

I pointed out that the sentiment in the sign would lead to genocide, whereas an elbow to the face seldom did.

I hate to say I'm right, but:

At least five people have been killed in a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City. The mosque was targeted with a pig's head in the summer and it's pretty safe to say—though, of course, the situation is still developing and we don't know many details—that the mosque was targeted because the most powerful voices in the world have declared open season on Muslims.

I'm so sick with rage and grief that I can barely breathe. I'm almost inured to hearing about mass shootings in the States, but this is here. I'm not so naïve as to think that Canadians are better than this—the same sick racist impulses roil just below the surface here—but it still hits close to home. There were children praying. I pass two mosques every day; it could have been the families that I casually smile at on my way home from work. It's too close, it's too real.

And regardless of what they uncover about the shooters (and we know it's going to be a lone wolf white dude who sparks a serious discussion about better awareness for mental illness; I guess two lone wolves in this case), you know who's to blame. You know who has been stoking the hatred here, in the States, in the sewers of Reddit and 4chan, on Twitter, in the White House, in the Tory leadership race. Holding up signs in Yonge-Dundas Square, aided and abetted by appeasers shrieking about free speech. J'accuse, you all have blood on your hands.

You cannot deal with them politely. You cannot appeal to their reason and humanity. This is the result of a climate of xenophobia, and muddleheaded liberalism has been fertile grounds for hatred to thrive.

Comments

[gingicat]

All true. :(

[sabotabby]

I can't believe this is happening.

[ironed_orchid]

I felt so sick and full of bile when I heard the news.

[sabotabby]

It's been a few days and I still feel sick.

I guess I understand a little more why people turn reactionary after a terrorist attack. That deep-seated rage and possessiveness, the sense of being under threat in your own home. Quebec City isn't my home but it's much more relatable than, say, New York or Paris.

[ironed_orchid]

I completely understand that impulse, I am deeply parochial in many ways, which is even easier than ever right now because my city council is so great and standing up to the state govt and the federal govt on many issues that are important to me. I've had lots of "fucking fight me" reactions to people dissing my town... and if anything like that ever happened my fear and rage would be off the chart.

More broadly, things like the shootings in Sydney a year ago and the driver who killed pedestrians in Melbourne hit closer to home, because while I've never lived in those cities, both took place in the heart of the CBD, in streets I have visited many times.

And of course in both those cases, the killer was man with a history of domestic violence. It's almost like it's a strong indicator that someone does not value human lives.

[sabotabby]

Almost always in these cases, it's some guy who has issues with women. Which makes me think if we're profiling anyone, it should be misogynists. It's like the single biggest risk factor.