High School in a Time of Segregation
A teenager thanks the truckers for delivering his family from despair.
Rylan, a grade ten student in southern Ontario, sent the truckers a three-page, hand written letter while they protested in Ottawa. His mother, he says,
lost her job from these [vaccine] mandates and seeing her cry really got to me and gave me a sense that things weren’t going to get better.
But as she’s seen what’s been going on, I can see her mood has changed completely, all because of you guys. I remember trying to be the happy one in the house even though I was hurting on the inside, but now my mom is in a great mood, and I thank you so much.
Grade 10 students are normally 15 or 16 years old. They’re navigating the transition to adulthood, and are often awkward and excruciatingly shy. Rylan writes:
I’m an athletic guy, and I’ve played hockey every year since I was 5. So hearing that it was mandatory to be vaccinated to play was one of the first times I was affected by the mandates. Hockey was one of my bigger stress relievers from school, problems, and just life in general. But just like that it was stripped away from me.
Here’s a public health plan. Let’s undermine active lifestyles! Let’s undermine mental health coping strategies! Let’s transform well-adjusted teenagers into pariahs! Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Rylan describes Christmas 2021 as “just an ordinary and depressing day.” He talks about landing his first part-time job the previous August, working outdoors at a golf course. Everyone was pleasant to him, he says, but he was frequently asked “if I was double vaccinated.”
His letter makes it plain that “my decision not to get the vaccine” has been an ongoing source of stress and anxiety. It has also been corrosive to relationships:
It was when I kept hearing about my younger sister’s friends constantly arguing and getting in fights with her about her own decision...hearing about the arguing, really made me feel like we were doing something wrong.
…As school came around, I was very nervous just about the fact that I was unvaccinated…I hoped that nobody would bring up that topic but when it did get brought up, I tried to stay true to my opinion and would say no. Many would be surprised and I felt out of place.
Let us never forget that Canada, in the 21st century, embraced overt segregation. Teenagers such as Rylan got expelled from coffee shops for not having the proper papers:
one day I was waiting with some friends after school to be picked up for a football game. We decided to go into Tim Hortons, which was just around the corner from the school, to get some extra work done. As we sat down, I opened my laptop to start working and this lady who works there walks over and asks if we have our [vaccine] passports, which I said no.
She then proceeded to ask me to leave, and as I did so I felt dehumanized and it just felt wrong. After that my self esteem just kept getting lower and lower, not being able to tryout for school sports…I just sat at home, feeling more depressed…It made small things overwhelm and hurt me so much more than they used to.
Rylan thanks the truckers for giving his family a sense of hope. He says the Freedom Convoy has made him believe that “things are are going to get much better.” Sweetheart that he is, he also attempts to put himself in the truckers’ shoes:
I know it’s been hard for you men and women to stay there and try not to get bored, so I hope this letter helps. I want you to know that we care about you. We wish [you] the best and are so thankful you are stepping up…
