Sep 26
Anthony Morgan writes of his response to an incident on a Montreal university campus that shows the persistence of racial stereotyping. First publiished in Alissa Trotz’s In The Diaspora column in Stabroek News.
I am a 25 year old Jamaican, born and raised in Canada and currently in my final year of law school at McGill University in Montreal., I would like to express my sincerest thanks to Dr. Alissa Trotz for having invited me to write this column. (I wish to) explain how my identity as a Diaspora Citizen has affected my reaction to a very intolerable incident I experienced on a Montreal university campus on September 14th, 2011…
More
Opinion: Blackface incident shows racism is alive and well in Canada, Charmaine Nelson
Usain Bolt’s Publicist’s Letter to HEC Montreal
Also by Anthony Morgan
Why Haiti Should Not Become a U.N. Protectorate
The CARIFORUM-EC EPA Two Years Later (With Joyce Naar)
Dear Anthony,
I would think that representations of Jamaicans/Blacks such as the one you witnessed serve the very important function of trivialising and ridiculing””and therefore devaluing””non-white accomplishments in a field that is avidly followed by the mass public. Such accomplishments are a source of discomfort and embarrassment to the dominant culture as it threatens the entire edifice of values, behaviours and power-relations upon which Western “˜civilisation”™ has been built over the past five hundred years. This might sound far-fetched, but to confront the reality of Black humanity is to call into question the justice and morality of the entire way in which our present world is constructed. In a sense, it is an “˜inconvenient truth”™. Its much easier, isn”™t it, to take refuge in the depiction of Black accomplishment in terms that sustain existing myths of “˜racial”™ inferiority ““ i.e. ” Blacks excel in athletics because they are like animals” (hence the monkey motif, a recurring theme in the history of the West) and ” Jamaicans run well because they smoke weed”. You might have heard of the consternation of Adolf Hitler at the success of Black American athlete, Jesse Owens, at the 1936 Berlin Olympics; because it struck at the very foundation of the theory of the master-race superiority which Hitler had hoped to “˜prove”™ at the Games. (By the way one of the humiliations to which Owens was subjected on his return to the United States was to race him against a horse””believe it or not. Get the point? ). An isn’t there a a supreme irony in the fact the many, if not all of the youngsters who devised this show were probably of French Canadian origin; as I believe that French Canadians have themselves been the victims of degrading ethnic stereotyping by the dominant Anglo-culture in Canada””didn”™t someone once describe Quebecois as the ” white niggers” of America?
Anthony, I must say that I think you handled this incident with great maturity and in a very constructive manner. You have rightly seen it is a teachable moment–another reminder that Canada has a long way to go in making a reality of multiculturalism. And it is obviously relevant elsewhere””as in the U.K., where the debate over ” Black” culture and ” white” culture has been ignited by the August insurrection.
Norman
Thank you for this article. This kind of racist foolishness is all over Europe, at football games etc. Well done, Anthony. We must never stay silent in the face of racism.
These people do this for fun. This silly behaviour says more about them, than it does about Black people. We have to fight it every inch of the way.
Thank you for taking a stand and the remarkable manner in which you confronted this situation. Emma is right it says more about who they are than it does about the Black race.