Following from Sunday’s protest
People who think Sunday’s protest was some kind of mindless party in emulation of the United States should read this Gazette op-ed about what the protest was really about, especially with François Legault continuing to maintain that there’s no systemic racism in Quebec.
Does Legault naively think systemic racism is something written down in an official manual? It is not. It’s an entire culture’s worth of hints, jokes and remarks. It’s an older police officer indicating to his younger partner that a couple of black youths walking along in a “nice” neighbourhood should be stopped and questioned. Once that younger cop stops asking “Why? They haven’t done anything suspicious” the meme has successfully reproduced itself. This is why it goes on existing and why it’s so hard to stop it, and why it’s systemic, no matter what our premier thinks.
Alison Cummins 19:26 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
There’s an awful lot of racism in Quebec, and not a lot of consciousness that it’s a problem. I think the dominant narrative that anglos oppress francos has a lot of french canadians completely oblivious that they could possibly ever be punching down.
EmilyG 19:28 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
I forget whether it was Legault or someone else who at one point said that there’s no Islamophobia in Quebec.
Alison Cummins 19:32 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
(I’m NOT saying French Canadians are more racist than other people. Just that they often tend not to be aware of it or to be self-conscious about it. Wasps are plenty racist but they tend to be aware of their position in the dominant culture, and to try to soft-pedal it.)
Max 21:12 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
One need only peek into any one of the myriad fire stations or firetrucks about town for visual confirmation that we have a big problem. I can’t believe it’s 2020 and we still haven’t had a public inquiry into the hiring practices of that klannish branch of the SPVM.
Blork 21:23 on 2020-06-01 Permalink
“Does Legault naively think systemic racism is something written down in an official manual?”
Yes, I think that’s exactly what he thinks. Him and countless others. People (mostly white) who simply cannot understand the basic concept that our social systems are way, way more than our official policies.
qatzelok 10:04 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
Racism is normalized by American mass media, and not by the former CEO of an airline (our premier) or laws about what you can wear to work for the government. And yet mass media is nowhere criticized here. In fact, mass media gets to accuse everyone else, especially the less wealthy “classes.”
How ineffective.
Meezly 10:37 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
On the same page as Alison. Quebecois society is in many ways more culturally sophisticated than Anglo culture, but when it comes to grasping the insidiousness of systemic racism or general wokeness they seem to 15 years behind. Take Robert Lepage and Béatrice Bonifassi in their defense of SLAV. It took them a long time to “get” the fact that what they were doing was incredibly disrespectful, and they belong to the intellectual elite! A lot of this has to do with the history of English rule – many Quebecers do identify with other oppressed peoples, not realizing that they have been perpetuating varying degrees of ‘harmless’ racism that comes from being in a dominant race/culture. It’s a kind of cognitive dissonance.
As a political leader, Legault is playing a dangerous game. I would like to say he shares this cognitive dissonance as Lepage, but as Kate said, he knows what he is doing. He’s not being as outrageous as Trump, but saying that there is no systemic racism in Quebec IS legitimizing systemic or institutional racism (which has been normalized as it’s been ingrained in every one of us). Mass media (American or not) is a part of that system, esp. when they are owned and controlled by corporate or state that want to maintain the status quo. I’m thankful that the French and English media are calling out this hypocrisy.
qatzelok 12:59 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
Meezly, what I was also suggesting was that it’s important to remember that mass media is owned and operated by the 1%. They have used it to get their sheep (viewers) to react a particular way on many an occasion. Agit-prop. Advertising. PR campaigns. Etc.
And that this particular series of well mediated riots after a well-mediated atrocity, might lead to martial law in the USA, which is exactly what a failed elite want right after they’ve bankrupted the system.
So whatever our media does (like point us to rioting as an immediate and hyper-real solution) is possibly part of the elite’s strategy for social control during an economic collapse. Instigate rioting, instigate riot control, use pandemic as backdrop for total repression of dissent.
I might be wrong, but this looks plausible to me.
Tee Owe 14:23 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
I think Qatzelok makes a valid point – look for postponement of the US election on account of civil disturbance – be (very) careful what you wish for here. Not sure I know what the better alternative is but I can be scared too. IMO we lack a unifying leader just now, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela, someone we can believe in – maybe I’m just having a weak moment
JaneyB 14:54 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
Racism here in QC seems more overt to me and the SPVM really needs to work on its relationship with people of colour. Still, I’m not convinced QC is more racist than in TO. In TO, people are very indirect; in QC, people say what they think so communication style is an issue.
Systemic racism and implicit bias is certainly a real thing here and elsewhere in the country but there are other factors in play here in QC that don’t exist in the rest of Canada. Many people in the regions here have very limited contact with Montreal and with other races. Often, they can be uncomfortable even visiting Montreal (or Ottawa) because they see it as full of English (which they don’t speak) and ‘others’ so their racism/ignorance is harder to break down. Also, Francos here, including in Mtl, see themselves as historically victims and that is accurate; their relationship to other marginalized groups really is more parallel. I think it’s just willfully blind to assume Lepage, for example, is operating from the same assumptions as his analogues in English-Canada. He speaks English but his cultural universe is very different. Lastly, QC’s status as a minority in the country and preoccupation of its own cultural survival is going to make integration of immigrants a very different project than it is in Toronto. It is simply harder to be self-protective and open. It has to be done, and the faster the better, but the method will not look like Toronto’s.
david88 16:23 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
“Lastly, QC’s status as a minority in the country and preoccupation of its own cultural survival is going to make integration of immigrants a very different project than it is in Toronto. ”
Excellent point.
Alison Cummins 17:44 on 2020-06-02 Permalink
Tee Owe: “look for postponement of the US election on account of civil disturbance – be (very) careful what you wish for here”
Ever since the last election I have thought that secession was plausible. The country could divide up into north, west and south, or something. Not a prediction – I don’t know enough about american politics to predict anything – but a possible way out of the standoff. If the election is postponed…