BLM and Pride Toronto have failed our community

As I’ve watched recent events unfold around police participation in Pride Toronto, I’ve listened to the debate that’s been going on. As a gay person of colour I do feel that I should be standing with BLM’s demands and Pride Toronto’s decision to ban police participation. Yet I struggle to see it as an affective gesture because instead of sending a strong message to Toronto Police Services about LGBTQ – POC and police relations, it has created a rift within our community and shadowed what progress we’ve made with TPS. I can say with certainty I would not support a permanent ban on police involvement at pride, but for this year, it’s a conversation I can open myself up to.When pride started as a protest for gay rights in the city, it included marriage equality and just treatment by the police the latter being an issue especially relevant for POC. We were all allies at the time, fighting for the same things. Then somewhere along the way, people of colour and LGBTQ’s paths began diverging.For LGBTQ people, marriage equality happened, police relations improved, and a whole new generation grew up and came of age in much rosier times. For people of colour, progress just hasn't been as successful.And slowly, we remembered less and less that we all once stood side-by-side, facing the same struggles. We’d fallen out of touch with each other; while their march carried on, ours turned into a parade and time went by.Then last year, after a long hiatus, they crashed on our doorstep, they rained on our parade, took it hostage in fact, and forced demands including the now controversial decision to ban police participation.It feels like we've been on different paths for so long now, each side having a very different relationship and experience with the police; the larger LGBTQ community has made strides forward and the people BLM advocate for in our community have not.In hindsight, it makes sense that we can’t see the issue from the same angle. We just don’t relate and feel for each other the way we used to.I wish we lived in a world where *all one needed to do was point out injustice and everyone would work to bring about change, but that’s not where we are yet.And unfortunately what BLM and Pride Toronto has failed to do, for LGBTQ people of colour and the mainstream community in uniting us in this cause, is bridge the gap: opening the lines of communication and cooperation, giving us better understanding to your situation, painting a human face and story on the issues our marginalized POC face. The truth is, it’s so hidden from our everyday lives that it may as well not exist. News reports and statistics don’t tell us enough. It doesn’t express your pain, your feelings, your words, your hurt… your story, because that’s what really needs to be heard. Remember, one photo of a Syrian boy. That was the picture that captured the story that moved the hearts of an entire nation to vote in a government that opened our boarders to the cause. I repeat, I wish we lived in a world where*...So here we are, BLM and Pride Toronto have done a disservice to the community, but not for banning Police from pride. For forcing our community to take up a cause while still divided. We knew we were divided on the cause since last year’s pride when this issue first came to light. But since then, where has the groundwork been that needed to be laid months before this vote was called: the dialogue to unite the community behind the decision, bridging the gap so that we could rally behind the cause as one voice? Instead, we now find ourselves caught with our pants down: divided as a community in front of the police and the public. Did they really think that after years of estrangement between LGBTQ and people of colour that we could just pick up where we left off? After all these years, our approaches for dealing with the police have taken different turns and we have different beliefs in how to go forward. Reuniting us, we need to rediscover the bond that once made us allies and that made us understand why we marched hand-in-hand.If BLM or Pride Toronto can’t be the community organization we need them to be, that understands how to properly handle a situation like this, manage the two schools of thought (inclusion vs. exclusion), show us the common ground, and rally everyone behind it, then the responsibility falls to us. But that’s okay, our community was build on grassroots initiatives.So let the bridge building begin with an open heart and open mind:-understand that some of us have indeed seen the relationship with police improve in comparison to 35 years ago, that bridges have been built and because of it we feel inclusion is important to continue fostering that growth,-understand that as great as that is, some of us have had none of those experiences and the situation remains as grim as ever,-understand that because not enough empathy is shown to our brother who sits on the other side of the fence, resentment festers,-understand that their/our attitude feels like an affront to our/their progress.-understand that progress should be guarded but true progress only exists when it can be shared.I remember reading an article about New York City Pride. It talked about the festivities over the past decade and how they’ve grown in scale: DJ's flown in from around the world, large venues, starting ticket prices at $80, an Ariana Grande headlined concert. Meanwhile, across the Hudson River, a gathering of homeless, transgender, black, queer youth did their own thing to partake in pride festivities but without any of the glam or lustre of their counterparts’ celebrations. Left out from participating in a movement that people like them once championed. It’s like they were left behind.It’s not that our concerns over banning police from pride aren’t valid, because ultimately we’re being asked to put all that built goodwill on the line, it’s that we need to understand who we’re putting everything on the line for. And that happens when we try harder to empathize with where their pain is coming from. Our hearts can do the rest: give us courage to do the things that are uncomfortable, galvanize a community to come to terms with each other, set aside differences, and agree to see eye-to-eye for a greater cause, to do for them, what they once did for us: stand by our side.It’s the end of January.Pride is in 5 months. I'd hate to think in that time we’re still divided and see the same arguments being played out in the eyes of the public. If that’s where we are, banning police participation becomes a powerless gesture. No one in our community wins.Pride is in 5 months. I’d like to think that’s just enough time for us to get our act together, to rally as a community behind one cause, so that when June comes and the city’s eye are on us, we show the police department, we show our city leaders, we show the public, we show the world, and most importantly we show each other that OUR community always, always stands in solidarity!