This is a crucial moment in the history of our beloved Swamp.
The stars are beginning to align, and we have opportunities before us not seen in decades. Private investment is slowly realizing our potential for growth. Major institutions are becoming engines of progress.
Downtown is in renaissance mode, as massive increases in folks living and working there are on the horizon. The momentum is snowballing into a true civic rebirth touching neighborhood after neighborhood.
The human and fiscal capital is returning. The energy is positive. Even local government seems to be slowly improving, a partner in some things forward thinking, and getting out of the way in others.
There is only one thing that we still must ensure, one difficult question we still must ask. Do we truly love one another?
All you need is love
A couple years ago, Toledo officially became a Compassionate City. There were hoops to get through, culminating in a resolution from city guvmint declaring us as such.
But we all know a resolution does not compassion make. In order to succeed and thrive in this crucial moment of metamorphosis, we must be all in. All in together. As in, all of us, all in for us all.
Are we?
There is hate resounding across the U.S. It is manifest in overt acts of violence and cruel rhetoric targeting fellow human beings for who they love, where they come from, how or whether they worship, the pigmentation of their skin, the gender they choose to express.
Is Toledo immune?
We are at a significant cusp of progress. Will we instead get bogged down in mistrust, ill-will, and the shredding of the social fabric?
So far, we have avoided the kind of anti-police uprising seen elsewhere, just as we have avoided glaring instances of questionable police tactics. But rest assured, there is a seamy underbelly just waiting to surface. Black folks are followed in stores simply for being Black. Folks with Arab-sounding names are given hateful stares of suspicion simply for their ancestry. Fellow Toledoans with brown skin get their citizenship questioned simply because they look non-white.
And recently, a married same-sex couple was denied a birthday cake because the baker searched their social media, discovered their sexual orientation, and informed them cakes wouldn’t be forthcoming.
The outrage on social media was swift and relentless. Just as there was an outpouring of support for Orlando after the Pulse nightclub tragedy. Just as there was a great celebratory Love Fest at the Love Wall on Adams Street recently.
Better together
It isn’t enough. As some great patriot once said, we must hang together, or we shall surely hang separately. We must celebrate our diversity and walk hand in hand into Toledo’s grand new day, or fall apart into divisiveness and failure. We must be all in.
Toledo has its own municipal anti-discrimination law that goes farther than state or federal law. It protects from discrimination on the basis of race and ancestry, but also on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It likely protects from discrimination in purchasing a birthday cake. The City should investigate the cake incident and, if warranted, bring charges.
Vigils and festivals are great, for the like-minded. People who don’t get it must be shown the light, sometimes through the harsh lens of the law.
Better yet, though, it must come from the heart. For until we all get it, we can’t be the great city we could truly be. We must love one another. Take some time right now for a simple, random act of kindness. Take time today for a gesture of goodwill, a leap of faith, a new understanding. We must be all in.
This is a crucial moment in the history of our beloved Swamp. Let’s make sure the haters don’t muck it up.
