The Movement of “Anti-Bullying” Ideals
February 22, 2017 marked the 9th annual Pink Shirt Day celebration in Canada, where the nation came together to wear pink shirts to support anti-bullying sentiments. This event originated in Nova Scotia in 2007 when two high school students, Travis Price and David Sheppard, witnessed a male peer being bullied for wearing a pink shirt. In response, they purchased fifty pink shirts and distributed them among fellow students in solidarity against the bullies. Subsequently, Pink Day was declared a provincial Anti-Bullying Day in British Columbia and later celebrated nationwide. There is a particular emphasis placed on this event within schools, such as Queen Alexandra Elementary School where this photo was taken. Support for this day has extended to approximately thirty countries worldwide, such as Japan and Turkey which were inspired to develop their own campaigns (Cahute, 2016).
Although this event has evolved to represent a general sense of anti-bullying, it originated from a teenager being harassed for being homosexual on the premise that he was wearing a pink shirt. Other facets in Canada of this day include International Day of Pink which works more exclusively to support LGBTQ+ youth. The legalization of same sex marriage in some ways has contributed to the notion that Canada is a progressive country with minimal oppression faced by our queer communities. Han and O’Mahoney (2014) describe how criminalization of queerness in countries such as India “based on British imperial legal instruments…and imposed…by Britain when they were colonized.” Rather than dictating policies, Pink Day is influenced by them.
Canada has not been influenced in this same way since independence was achieved sooner than other colonies and has differently resulting policies. Despite this, homophobic sentiments in modern Canadian society are present and rooted in its history as a white settler nation (Razack, 2001). Traditional heterosexual dynamics were imposed on indigenous people during periods of white settlement which produced the heteronormative society we currently live in. In current times, however, Canada is branded as a safe space for queerness and attempts to mobilize ideas of queer acceptance and general inclusivity to other areas off the world grounded on acceptance through mechanisms such as Pink Day.
Furthermore, there has been erasure of the origins of the event being connected to countering rejections of queerness. In this way, the transformation of this event is comparable to that of the Stonewall protest. Unlike the Stonewall riots that initially operated in protest of police raids as institutionalized practices (Manalansan, 1995) Pink Day commenced in order to target localized forms of discrimination within peer groups at schools (Cahute, 2016). Both occasions transformed over new time to acquire new meanings, involving support of LGBTQ+ rights and a more general anti-bullying message respectively (Manalansan, 1995). Like “echoes of Stonewall, this serves to perpetuate vague ideas that become more specific in their localized contexts. This includes the range of generality in ideas presented in schools within Canada as well as internationally, such as the focus on peer violence in Croatia’s Pink Day (Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, 2016).
In regards to Pink Day, the symbol of a pink shirt has not only obtained meaning beyond its function as an article of clothing to be worn or sold. The meaning of these shirts have evolved from addressing anti-homophobic messages to larger claims to anti-bullying in order to cater to the needs of the Canadian elementary school system through inclusion of social justice in curriculum. These meanings have been further transformed and distorted as the movement has been carried to other countries that have such as Unity Day in the United States where they wear orange in support of students who have been bullied (Cahute, 2016).
The anti-bullying message I had to convey to children when volunteering at Queen Alexandra was to be kind to people even if they are ‘different’. It was interesting to note how institutions such as schools begin to employ techniques of social differentiation towards children by re-establishing groups of people as the Other. To clarify, this message still serves to reinforce the students’ ability distinguish groups who are ‘different’ from them even though it is employed to prevent children from contributing to the marginalization of people based on race, socio-economic status, sexual or gender orientation, etc.
References
Cahute, Larissa, (2016). By the numbers: pink shirt day in B.C. now the biggest in Canada. The Province.
Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (2016). Members of CNT drama acting in performance the woman marked the pink shirt day. Retrieved from http://www.hnk.hr/en/members-of-cnt-drama-acting-in-performance-the-woman-marked-the-pink-shirt-day/
Han, Enze and O’Mahoney, Joseph. (2014). The British colonial origins of anti-gay laws. The Washington Post, October 30.
Manalansan, Martin. (1995). In the shadows of Stonewall: examining gay transnational politics and the diasporic dilemma. GLQ, 2(4): 425-438.
Razack, Sherene. (2001). When race becomes place. In her Race, space and the law: unmapping a white settler society, pp. 1-20.