Pride, police, the public and the parade

Jul 8, 2018 | 5:00 AM

KAMLOOPS PRIDE released a very carefully constructed statement last week that clearly explained the decision that had been reached mutually through long discussions with the Kamloops RCMP concerning the RCMP’s participation in this year’s Downtown Pride Parade.

The message was basically that the groups have decided that individual members are more than welcome to participate as private citizens in the parade this year, but the RCMP as an organization will not be.

This means that reasonable, educated and informed adults who have been working toward a complicated goal made a mutual decision for the good of everyone while agreeing to continue a healthy dialogue that’s moving in the right direction.

So why did a surprising number of people have such extreme reactions to the decision?

The public verdicts on social media that I saw seemed largely to go one of two ways:

  1. “Why won’t Kamloops Pride let the RCMP participate in the parade?! They’re so unreasonable!” With a fair amount of, “Don’t they want protection?”, “So much for inclusion”, “Shouldn’t RCMP be allowed to represent in that community?” and “They can’t keep police from a public gathering!” on the side.
  2. “Why won’t the RCMP participate in the Pride parade?! They’re so unreasonable!” With a fair amount of, “Shouldn’t they want to protect people?”, “Why don’t they want to represent in that community?” and “Why don’t they want to be supportive?!” on the side.

You see the problem with these juxtaposed arguments, right?

They can’t both be true.

Part of the disconnect between the decision and the public was that voices too often enter the conversation without first taking the time to become informed.

Thankfully, there is a simple solution to that part of the problem: read first, comment after.

But, putting that obvious and persistent aggravation aside, the bigger problem with those conclusions is how little credit they gave to the two parties who have faithfully come to the table and worked very hard to make progress.

The representatives for the two communities responsible for making a complicated and nuanced decision for everyone involved apparently did so amicably and jointly; however, much of the public’s reaction (on both sides) to the decision was based on biases, assumptions and a knee-jerk reactions.

It all kind of boils down to this: Eye on the ball, folks.

Let’s not just focus on this one moment but instead on the end game.

Shouldn’t our reasonable response have been gratitude? After all, this is good progress!

When two groups that have been historically contentious choose to work toward a stronger and more understanding future we should support it.

Even if we don’t immediately see the result we want, progress itself is a measure of success.

Acknowledging that a “win” looks different than you might have hoped doesn’t mean that you can’t be disappointed or wish that the end result would come about more quickly, but we have to start looking past our own dissatisfaction, partiality or expectations to see the bigger picture.

Let’s give people the time and support they need to repair a painful history and trust those who are proving themselves to be trustworthy in that effort.

My hope is that, after carefully reading the statement from Kamloops Pride and the statements later made by Cpl. Jodi Shelkie on behalf of the RCMP (“We really respect the decision that we shouldn’t be in [the parade], taking into account the controversy that’s happened in other communities across Canada with other police departments, not just the RCMP, but other police departments participating in pride parades.” As reported to CBC Kamloops), we can add a third and alternate reaction to the discussion.

3. “It sounds like both relevant parties have put an admirable amount of time, effort and compromise into this decision. I respect their hard work and this is definitely a significant step in the right direction.”