Problems and challenges persist for black Quebecers

On the eve of Black History Month, members of Montreal’s black community gathered at city hall last Friday to celebrate their many accomplishments. There were lawyers, academics, teachers, bartenders and people in show business. There was music, speeches and much pride as the community honoured 12 successful black citizens. Among the many guests was Kathleen Weil, Quebec’s minister of immigration, diversity and inclusion.

The previous two days, Weil had been in Quebec City chairing hearings on changes to the province’s immigration policy. But the narrative he heard regarding the state of the black community wasn’t particularly rosy.

Failure to master French and poor job prospects are driving many young black anglophones out of the province, while workplace discrimination is posing problems for French-speaking black immigrants who have come to Quebec to build a better life.  Equal opportunity programs are needed to help reduce the unemployment rate among immigrants and visible minorities, the head of the Quebec Human Rights Commission said.

Discrimination in the workplace can be explained partly by “fear of the unknown” on the part of some businesspeople, the head of the province’s largest employer group said.

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I Wore Blackface in Quebec and Everybody Loved It

A Quebec media war exploded over the past few weeks after Mario Jean, a popular Francophone comedian, wore blackface on national public television to impersonate black comedian Boucar Diouf. To the rest of the country, blackface is an obvious no-no, but every now and then in Quebec, you’ll see a white French comedian painting up his face and impersonating a black guy on TV, and by every now and then, I mean every single fucking year. Strangely enough, most people usually just laugh it off. But this time, Huffington Post commentator Nydia Dauphin called it out and said that the racist behavior has got to stop.

Rather than throw up their dark foundation-stained hands while sheepishly saying “guilty!” Nydia’s piece sparked a series of articles from various publications criticizing her for bashing Quebec and calling all Quebecers racists. It’s important to point out that Nydia didn’t actually call all Quebecers racists. She did, however, point out a major problem in Quebec—one that very few people here seem interested in tackling. And that is the fact that most French Quebecers are totally okay with a white person slathering black makeup on their face and imitating a black person.

In her response to Nydia’s article, journalist Judith Lussier admitted having never heard of the term blackface before. She even provided her readers with a link to the Wikipedia page, assuming they would be just as clueless (if you’re from Quebec and still confused check it out here).The unfortunate truth is: She’s totally right, lots of Quebecers don’t know about blackface. Some say Quebec’s education system might be at fault. The province’s high school curriculum provides youth with very little information concerning the history of black people in Canada, and makes a very brief mention of black slaves’ presence in the country. This results in most Quebecers having the impression that slavery and racism in the nineteenth century was not a Canadian problem, but rather an American one. Of course Canada did have slaves (in fact the only known slave cemetery in Canada, unfortunately named “Nigger Rock,” is located an hour south of Montreal).

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Using EDM as a racist deterent. {rant]

Joshua Carl 5:13 AM - 19 August, 2013

Ill preface this by saying Im an open format DJ, always have been.
one could easily attribute it to my ADD or playing from my gut (mood)

but something Ive noticed (and lets be real here, its NOTHING new) but now that this stuff
they are trying to pass off as Dance Music ( I Dare not tarnish the name of house by calling it such)... so for that sake of this post I'll refer to this current incarnation of uptempo electronic pop music like most... as "EDM"
which in itself presents its on rant, you know we LOVE EDM.... but you play some proper dance music and u get the stink puss...
which is no different than any other crossover music....

back to the point.
More and more I have Bars, not clubs, places that have no business trying to compete with proper dance room asking for ZERO hiphop...
and some arent even sugar coating it with a politcally correct cover up statement.

now, i suppose i could ball up my fist and go "go fuck your racist ass" and walk.
but being who I am, I try to convince them otherwise....
its a battle now, it was 10 years ago.... and obviously alot longer back than Ive been around.
But I try to explain that just switching the format 100% without doing any of the supporting measures for dance music is a bitch move.
IE trying to rip 4 hours of 128 bpm through 8" bar speakers with zero lights, and tiny subs that a pig getting violated everytime a chunky bassline romps through it.

I know Im not alone, and being white I think im expected to just side with them and be excited that in BARS im trying to sell 4 hours of music 25% of the crowd wants to hear.
you know, the whole night people are asking for even the most topical top 40 HipPop
and when you cant they lose their shit (Especially ladies)

alot of these places Im still at, years later even for some and the race card sort of disapears, and reappears occasional when the owner gets Barny Phife and wants the place to be whiter.

This past week I had a solid 50/50 crowd.
its colligiate, not music saavy, but they want me to spin NOTHING but EDM.
Im there because my predecessors yielded to the crowd too easy and too often.
At about 1230 Dropped down and played a Miley Redrum, That Selena Gomez Jump Smokers Remix and a few trappy remixes of Zedd, alesso & such...
the manager comes up... Josh... lets get away from the hiphop
(I saw it coming)
so I pulled up my library.
"which song? So I can flag it, so I dont play it again.... Becuase I havent touched my hiphop folder"
after peering at my history... well, you know this slow hiphop stuff.
"you know I cant be at a colligiate bar and NOT play the new Miley & Selena"
--Oh? well.... well get out of the stuff with the bass

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EDM festivals fraught with white privilege

EDM festivals fraught with white privilege

Festival experience dampened by rampant cultural appropriation and racial bias

Guest Author

As an avid fan of house music and member of Binghamton University’s Hoop Troop, I’m almost the typical attendant of EDM festivals. However, my experience at this past summer’s Electric Forest Festival proved to me that so many white people just don’t get it. Because I am a person of color, what should have been an exhilarating adventure turned out to be a nightmare. I faced covert racism and microaggressions from pseudo-hippies that left me cynical about festival culture and colorblindness among the younger generation.

Festivals such as Coachella have already received backlash for the cultural appropriation of Native American headdresses; so much so that a plethora of festivals have banned the sporting of the war bonnets. Yet something that the media doesn’t address is the cultural appropriation of dreadlocks that is so apparent in EDM festival culture. The amount of white people with dreads at Electric Forest was astounding. I was prepared to be one of the few people of color at the festival, but I wasn’t prepared to see people steal my culture.

Many festival attendees fail to realize the cultural significance of hair as a part of black identity, especially dreadlocks. Historically, straightening black hair was a form of survival, in hopes of gaining access to opportunities and resources that African-Americans were denied. Wearing afro-textured in its natural state is a declaration against the European standard of beauty.

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Why "Indie" Music Is So Unbearably White

Ever since 1920s marketers categorized some discs as race records and others as hillbilly American music genres have been constructed around race. That's true today of indie rock and indie music, genre designations that are occupied almost entirely by white musicians. "In indie rock, white is the norm," Sarah Sahim wrote last week in a Pitchfork about "The Unbearable Whiteness of Indie." She later added, "I can count on one hand the prominent performers in the independent scene that look like me."

Sahim argues that there are so few artists of color in indie because of "overt and covert expressions of racism." She points to a petition calling for the Glastonbury music festival to replace Kanye West as a headliner with a "rock band"—which is code, Sahim rightly argues, for "a white artist." When you're an artist of color and you see indie fans signing petitions like that—with 132,000 signatures, at last count—you're going to get the message that you're not welcome in indie.

One way that indie maintains its whiteness, then, is by telling people of color to go away. But the fact that "rock" can be code for "white" suggests that genre whiteness is not just a matter of discouraging artists of color. Genres like rock and indie are for many people defined by whiteness—that is, white skin becomes the genre marker, rather than the music itself. There are few artists of color in the indie scene because artists of color who make what could be called "indie music" get classified as something else.

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FIGHT at Tim Hortons between Black and racist woman - Montréal

The Social Reality of Black Muslims in the U.S.

Un Québécois raciste qui demande aux Immigrés de dégager du Québec (Répo...