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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