Unemployment rate among blacks in Quebec

[EagerBeaver]

FML2,

Is the statement by Parizeau that the separatists lost the referendum due to the ethnic vote a true or false statement?

 

[StripperLover]

Parizeau's Speech

The following is a direct translation of Parizeau's famous speech to "Oui" supporters after defeat on October 30, 1995.

It's true we have been defeated, but basically by what? By money and the ethnic vote.

 

[General Gonad]

Way to hijack a perfectly good thread, guys! can one of the mods split the last few posts onto another of countless other threads dealing with this same old TIRED subject...The actual topic started by General G. deserves a lot more than to be shanghaied down this petty road......

Thanks Shijak,

I agree with you on all counts, especially the changing demographic profile of Quebec. First, you're right to point out that this thread was not intended to deviate unto the emotionally charged subject of Quebec separation. I can start a new thread that elaborates why I strongly feel that ultimately Quebec's culture and language are more protected within Canada than a separate nation within a nation. The 1995 referendum was extremely close and undoubtedly helped by shady tactics from the federal government and the corporate elites, but it may have been a blessing in disguise for all of us, inlcuding those francophones who think that the long-term sustainability of their culture and language can only be achieved in a separate nation.

But I never felt that francophones in Quebec - separatists or federalists - are more or less racist than others, so I do not think this explains the high unemployment rate among blacks in Quebec. Perhaps it has something to do with language - i.e., unilingual anglophone blacks will have a harder time of integrating than blacks from Haiti or the Dominican Republic. I do not know because the article did not discuss this issue.

All I know is that it is a problem we should all recognize.


GG

 

[Mike Mercury]

Good cast by Gonad. A usual the people of Quebec have responded with dignity, humility, logic and knowledgeableness. This is what sets Quebec apart from most of of North America.

 

[StripperLover]

GG,

Historical racism in Quebec ? Perhaps or not so here is a link to a woman wrote about it & she is a Quebecois.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Delisle

 

[General Gonad]

>>Hydragoat, I never implied that French Quebecers are more or less racist than other North Americans.

>>SL, excellent link but this cannot express how contemporary Quebec elites feel, or at least I hope not.

GG

 

[StripperLover]

GG,

I doesn't say how comtemporary Quebec elites feel but if there were generations indoctrinated that an ethnic group is a certain way (stereotypicals) it doesn't go away within 1 or 2 generations especially those who live or grew up in the regions of Quebec where they have never personally came in contact with anyone of any ethnicity at all. Change of mentality takes time & personal contact experience.

 

[General Gonad]

GG,

Change of mentality takes time & personal contact experience.

Absolutely right on this.

 

[shijak]

About esther delisle...

GG,

Historical racism in Quebec ? Perhaps or not so here is a link to a woman wrote about it & she is a Quebecois.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Delisle

that book, The Traitor and the Jew, is really eye-opening. I have it and read it a few years ago, soon after a radio interview with her. Fascinating book, for which she got into a lot of hot water from some circles. I actually met her once in person, and funny enough when i told her I had read her book, she flinched as if I was going to lace into her. I guess in the time after the publication of that book she became the target of a lot of people's hostility. i had to reassure her for quite a few minutes that I in fact truly enjoyed her book.

 

[StripperLover]

shijak,

One might want to ask, who were her critics ? What are their political beliefs ?

 

[shijak]

shijak,
One might want to ask, who were her critics ? What are their political beliefs ?

I'll have to go check the book out again on my shelf for a more pondered answer, but the "critics" were more like complainers. They couldn't fault her for inventing facts in her book as it is strictly a highly-researched non-fiction book with a whole mess of supporting documents.
What i recall, her harshest detractors were the intelligentsia, especially those connected to the newspaper "Le Devoir" (yes, THAT one!) who went crazy when she brought to attention just how despicable the paper was in the 30's and '40s with their rampant anti-jewish sentiments, echoing what was going on in Europe. (I'll try to quote a juicy headline tomorrow).

Also, the nationalists of the time (not exactly the same as today's souverainistes..) would have been quite happy if Quebec had turned into a fascist state similar to what Italy and Vichy France were at the time. In fact , Delisle dug up many, MANY uncomfortable documents that proved just how willing our government at that time was in cahoots with the Vichy's.

Also, the abbe Lionel Groulx (he who had a metro station named after him)
had a bee in his bonnet against the Jews specifically. Under a pen name that was one of the worst-kept secrets, was a regular contributor to Le Devoir and he would try as he might for us to be rid of the Jews. (nasty guy he was). A known nationalist, he also railed against every other ethnicity present in the province...Who is this guy? well, his idea of national pride and strength is to proclaim that in Quebec marriages of the day, a sexual act is to be performed only for the strict act of procreation, and it is a sin to enjoy this same act! But to counter the growing english speaking population of Quebec and the neighbouring U.S., he mandated our mothers or grandmothers to accept giving birth to an average of a dozen children for each family.

Way to respect the body of women (oh, wait, there WAS no respect for women as individuals back then...)

So basically, esther got a lot of people angry at her for revealing stuff that was the accepted norm back then, but is socially unacceptable today, making a lot of people uncomfortable (Le Devoir, the clergy, politicians, the intelligentsia that before the start of the war were quite on-side with Hitler's tactics, the whackjobs extremists on both sides of the neverending debate...)

i'll scan my book again in the next couple of days, and perhaps i'll add more to this if there's an interest...

 

[zigezon]

Here,


Dont get started with the "jew" thing. Write/Say anything against the jew and you'll be threated as a Nazi. Say anything to support them and you'll be blessed. (I refer "you" as people)


By the way, it's not because a small minority says/thinks something that you can characterize the majority with the same traits.



Here's something about that book you all talked, from Wikipedia:

These assertions, most of which appear not to have been validated or even seriously debated, include:

* her attributions of pseudonymous articles are often invalid (in particular, her argument depends heavily on the assumption that Groulx wrote under the name Lambert Closse, although she frankly states she has no evidence that he did; some historians have adduced evidence from Groulx's archives which suggests that Lambert Closse was the pseudonym of another priest whose correspondence Groulx did not reply to)
* she ignores articles which present more moderate opinions
* many of the articles cannot be found as referenced by her (she has corrected some of these citations)
* the extracts from the articles she selected often misrepresent the ideas in them
* she fails to distinguish Catholic anti-Semitism from fascist sympathies
* she fails to deal adequately with the contradictions in Groulx's attitudes towards Jews (he publicly denounced anti-Semitism as unchristian, for example)
* she ignores the possibility of interethnic rivalry between two minority groups (French Canadians and Jews)
* she does not compare the texts drawn from Le Devoir or l'Action nationale to texts from French Canadian publications generally considered to have been fascist.
* she presented an admittedly exploratory study as a test of several linked hypotheses (for example, by drawing inferences from isolated texts rather than by estimating the frequency of anti-Semitic themes in Le Devoir and l'Action nationale and comparing it to a control frequency, such as the frequency of anti-Semitic references in English Canadian or foreign publications of the same period).

 

[Mike Mercury]

I read Esther Delisle's writings and have seen a documentary about her last year. It was a Radio-Canada or Radio-Quebec.
I've also read other similar work.

Zigezon's point about inter-ethnic rivalry is very valid.
This tendancy often pleases the majority (divide & conquer says Machiavelli).

I saw a recent documentary on Global, Martin Himel's "Confrontation at Concordia".
Some poorly done thing issues between Palestinians & Jews at Concordia. There were no riots and it was basically interviews with self righteous loud mouths with & without the beer.
Near the end a comment was made that "Quebec's history was stained by anti-semitism".

There it is inter-ethnic rivalry perhaps in the hopes of garnering favour from Global's anglo owners and anglo spectators.
A cheap shot at Quebec on a documentary about anglophone students at an anglophone university. But its free speech and nothing exagerated was said.

......BUT....
What was not said was the federal immigration policy (anglo controlled) in the 30, 40 & 50's prefered Nazis over Jews.
McGill University (anglo controlled) had quotas for Jews.
Germany committed a holocaust and the rest of Europe sold out the Jews on theit territories.
The KKK were active in Ontario & out west.
Beaches in the USA were segregated by race & religion. Restricted country clubs were invented down there.

That the first Jewish member of parliament in the British empire was in Quebec, in Trois Rivieres I think.
That the Catholic Church of Quebec sent out emmissaries to Quebec Jewish leaders to start to straighten out some misunderstandings & prejudices. After all St Jean Baptiste est un Juif.

So for you Yanks & otheres who think Quebecers are racist. Fck-off. Stay home.

 

[Cosmo]

Hydragoat,

I agree with most of what you say.
I don't know what's wrong with some people here,but some definetely like to accuse quebeckers of racist.
They don't have anything better to do obviously.
Blacks,jews or any other minorities don,t have it harder here than in any other occidental country.
What about french canadians in other provinces?
I suppose they have many schools,univeristies,hospitals,tv and radio stations just like quebec's anglo minority right???
Yeah sure....
Go in the prairies and see how they are being treated like second rate citizens,having to struggle on a dayly basis to survive in french.
The only thing wrong with your post Hydragoat is the fact of most of the attacks agains quebecois are from Toronto(no big surprise here) and Montreal.Most Yanks are rather conciliant.

 

[zigezon]

So for you Yanks & otheres who think Quebecers are racist. Fck-off. Stay home.

RIGHT ON!

And to continue, that the First Black MLB (major league baseball) started his career here, in Montreal, and was acclaimed by the local fans!

 

[Cosmo]

And don't forget the Weider brothers started their empire right here in good old Montreal.
But please guys,you don't have to resort to nasty 4 letter words to express your opinions.
Let's be civilized.
Et vive la différence!

 

[Mike Mercury]

Not to mention the success of Anthony Kavanagh, Sonya Benezra, Normand Brathwaithe and many others.

To those of you you who think Quebec is racist:
People in glass houses should not throw stones.
A man sees a straw in his neighbour`s eye but does not see the tree trunk in his own eye.

Please. Your veiled criticism does not wash here. Don`t insult my intelligence.

 

[General Gonad]

Ginette Renault or Celine Dion?

Hydragoat,

You raised many valid points in the post where you discuss history. I do not think people are labelling all Quebecers racist - this is ridiculous. The same problems pervade in many other provinces and states down south. I would be curious to see the percentage of blacks unemployed for each province and state to see if Quebec is an outlier.

Anyways, many Quebecers feel insecure about their language and culture. Often, it borders on irrational fear. As a French-Canadian friend of mine once said: "You can think like Ginette Renault or like Celine Dion," meaning if you're closed minded, then you'll always be an insecure Quebecer.

The same goes for all of us.

GG

 

[shijak]

Again...

Are we back to this again? (about Quebec being more racist than blah, blah, blah...)
The fact of the matter is that every, let me repeat, EVERY human being on this planet is racist. This basic human mechanism is permanently etched onto our genetic code, the same as love, hate and anger...From the dawn of primitive man that savagely swung fist or club at every unfamiliar stranger who was just as desperate for a scrap of food as he was, or screamed in terror at the sight of lightning, fire or wild predators, we've been conditioned to lash out at every unfamiliar being that crosses our paths...But our primal need to reproduce slowly tamed our fear as we ourselves created like-minded individuals to help protect our land-food and women.

The result of that is tribalism, an instinctive need to associate with others that at least partially reflect how we see ourselves, and to instinctively fear and resent the different.

We avoid displaying or even thinking the baser characteristics of racism only through our personal experience, education,familiarity or moral code. Avoid them only, yet they are still there!
Under the right circumstances, how far away are any of us from uttering a racial epiteth? Most of us here on the board would probably never yell a colourful four-letter word at another being of white, black, asian, arabic, and all other persuasions, but I say it's only because we've had over 400 years of close contact to help us suppress the anger and fear of racism.

Take an educated, streetwise individual, that has friends at the synagogue and in the gospel choir. He is part-owner of a chinese restaurant and his bowling league partner is named Amir. Not the typical example of a proto-Klansman, is he? But take such an individual and jump ahead in time,say 30 years, where we finally have the visit from beings of another planet. Not the typical Star Trek aliens with funny bumps on their forehead, but aliens with horribly distorted body shapes, smelling like rotted meat and rancid eggs, that have questionable eating habits (monkey brains?). And the barest touch from their slimy tentacles is enough to allow our centuries old feelings of revulsion to boil to the surface... Take the same educated person and put him in close proximity to this new affront to everything we once took for granted for a period of many years and the civilized veneer may chip away...

Now i wrote all this because i find the posts above pretty useless in their arguments about Quebecers as a whole and their capacity for racism as no human being is immune to the displaying of racist traits under the appropriate stimuli. From the prairie yahoo that calls quebecers frogs to the quebecer who calls the local asian chintok, no group of individuals is immune to the labelling of racist, it is the worthy individuals who make a difference by challenging our baser instinct thru the wellspring of their need for justice.

 

[Mike Mercury]

Quand ça fait coin coin comme un canard, et que ça la un bec comme un canard et que ça vol et nage comme un canard....bien.... C'est un canard.
Je n'ai pas besoin de voir ses petites pattes palmées en dessous de l'eau.

I can read between the lines just as well as anybody else.

As for you who reread all those posts and have now passed your judgment and stated who the most intelligent poster is and that you saw no indication of this or that.
If I were you I would say out of polemics like this. You are naive & not quite cognisent of what is going on.