Above all, let's not talk about racism | News

The Government of Quebec is preparing to launch a consultation on racism and systemic discrimination.

That's the official version, but Jean-François Lisée sees clearly into the Liberals' game. It's not a consultation, oh no, it's a "trial that the Liberal Party wants to bring to Quebecers". We want to portray you as racists, ladies and gentlemen! It's a trial, it's the Nuremberg of the poor!

In response, Prime Minister Philippe Couillard chose the path of reason, and he explained his project in a calm tone.

…

NO! I'm fooling you! We are in Quebec, and we talk about racism and identity. Couillard therefore chose to describe the PQ leader as a “negationist”, a term with just a tad connotation. Holocaust denier, because Jean-François Lisée and the sleazy guy trying to convince you that Hitler still had some good ideas: same fight!

Another debate well under way for Quebec. Thank you for your good work, boys.

* Here, the columnist rolls his eyes so intensely that they stick up and he has to type the rest of his column relying on his typing lessons. You'll forgive him the typos.*

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We all know what racism is: it's the uncomfortable comment that Aunt Lucie leaves on Facebook, despite her profile picture showing a unicorn drinking from a rainbow lake.

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But “systemic” discrimination, what a shame it is ?

According to the Barreau du Québec, it is “the social production of race-based inequality in the decisions people are made and the treatment they receive. Racial inequality is the result of the organization of the economic, cultural and political life of a society”.

In short, this means that if you don't look like Sylvain Tremblay, you may come up against invisible obstacles and prejudices, vestiges of the way the world has organized over time.

Let's say society is my sock drawer. As we always do the washing before emptying the drawer, I never get the stockings from the bottom when I get dressed in the morning. I have no conscious prejudice towards the socks in the back of the drawer, whether fishnet, silk or cotton ("all the stockings are of my race", as Vigneault sang), but the system is arranged in such a way as I never choose them.

This is a bit like systemic discrimination. A little. Except that as soon as we try to talk about it in Quebec, we are told that we are trying to make Quebecers look like stinky stockings full of holes.

Say "systemic racism" and the other person's brain will start thinking in capital letters with exclamation marks, in a strange Pavlovian reflex, in a discussion that will look like this:

— Perhaps there are unconscious biases and structures in society that prevent minorities from…— HEY, IT’S NOT TRUE THAT WE’RE ALL RACISTS, OK?!— … OK. That's good, that's not what I was saying. I was talking about a commission that would submit a report, nothing binding that…— STOP MAKING QUEBECERS LIKE RACISTS!!— …Would you be willing to pretend to be called Mohamed the next time you try to rent a apartment?— …NOT RACISTS, OK?!

Then comes the clincher: Quebec is no more racist than the rest of the world (which is probably true). In short, live the bare minimum! Above all, we would not want to start being better than elsewhere. When will there be a trophy for the fact that we no longer call Asians "Tchintoques"?

The fear of being called racist is deeply rooted in the average Quebecer, especially those of nationalist leanings. For years, he's used to reading that on the scale of racism, he's somewhere between Mel Gibson dressed as Hitler and Tintin in the Congo, right next to a Chinese woman driving joke by Peter Macleod. In English Canada, rumor has it that the Bonhomme Carnaval is a Klu Klux Klan costume with a rounded head.

In reaction, some are now going to the other extreme and claiming that Quebec is the only place in the world where it is useless to wonder. Here, everything is fine. Here, the discrimination is the work of a few dark individuals, who obviously have all their free days to comment on Facebook.

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Here, the unemployment rate for North Africans, blacks and indigenous people is barely two three times higher than the Quebec average. Only that.

It is moreover to fill this gap that Jean-François Lisée recently proposed a bank of anonymous CVs. The Gabriel-Nadeau-Dubois-ization of Quebec politics quickly made him forget that time when he still dreamed of stealing votes from Quebec solidaire.

In early March, after a series of consultations, Ontario released this statement titled: “Ontario is fighting systemic racism and breaking down barriers.” And you know what? No one came out of a bush going, “Ha, HA! I knew that all Ontarians were filthy racists!”