Racism or Secularism? Quebec looking to ban all religious garb.

[Rue]

Well Black Dog there is a well known phenomena that minorities try legitimize themselves in the eye of the majority by putting down other minorities or their own minority characteristics that is referred to as false consciousness by sociologists and social psychologists so I would have to agree that a lot of this may have something to do with that. When any minority is insecure they may tend to engage in that kind of behaviour. Its actually an interesting phenomena and can be found in all cultures.

I also think in this case there is something deliberate going on. Ms. Marois wants a minority vote so she has pulled out the purelaines card hoping to galvanize the rural vote. She has been told the island of Montreal, and the Hull-Gatineau area as well as the Hudson corridor on the Ontario Border and the Eastern Townships with its sprinkle of English will not vote for the PQ.

This means she must find a way to get all the rural vote and the quickest way is to play on their hatred of anything outside their small town mentality

Traditionally in Quebec to have whipped up the rural vote was to be anti English. Problem is its been so long since the English language had any interaction with the rural Quebecois its hard to hate simply the language now.

So the hatred has to be refocused. Scapegoating to galvanize a vote is an old technique. What better way to scapegoat and find a minority to unify the rural vote around by hating it then reinventing that scapegoat not just to be English but Muslim and Siekh too and anyone who looks different.

The Parti Quebecois always was anti-Semitic. Jacques Parizeau singled out Jews for losing an election. This anti-Semitism can be traced back to the Catholic Church. This anti Semitism transferred ut of the Catholic Church into the Parti Quebecois as the Parti Quebecois replaced the Catholic Church as the major faith organ in Quebec and switched the focus from the faith of Catholicism to Quebecoism.

That said Rene Levesque was never an anti-Semite. He witnessed the concentration camps as a journalist and he was always a gentleman with minorities and if it was not for his influence on the Parti Quebecois their racism and cultural intolerance would have raised its head a lot sooner but let us not kid ourselves.

The PQ attacked Chinese, Greeks, Italians, English Jews, etc., using the pretense of protecting the French language when they send gestapo like language police to tear down signs no different than the Brownshirt SA lunatics of the Nazi era.

The pretense was protect French but it went far further from that. How is speaking Mandarin or Yiddish or Italian or Greek a threat exactly? Do people fear the word sufflaki?

Marois represents an odious minority of so called Quebecois separatists who envision Quebecers not just as people who speak French but make no mistake about it are Catholic and white and have the same physical features as the rural Quebecers and speak with their accent.

This is not just about being white, but looking like a white Quebecois ( the prototype would be someone who looks like Maurice Richard) speaking French, but with an insulated rural French accentonly particular to Quebec outside Hull-Gatineau and Montreal.

This discrimination starts with the skullcap or covering or turban but make no mistake it goes further then that.

This won't stop with head coverings.It is going to get nasty and its going to reveal the true racist and other hateful sentiments inside the Quebecois separatist movement.

That said and again call me naïve, I do not believe the majority of "white" Quebecers who speak French agree with how far this has gone and will speak up. In fact I think the provincial Liberals will ride this back into power. I think it will cause everyone to forget the corruption scandals.

All that said, the culture Minister of Quebec is a black man originally from Africa. To see him with a straight face defend the charter and extol the virtues of proudly proclaiming he assimilated himself into Quebecois society and so wears no visible signs of minority status and therefore is a role model to minorities was the height of absurdity.

Talk about false consciousness. Black men whose only crime was being from Haiti and who did not wear any garb have been beaten by Montreal police. One was shot dead in the back for no reason. I do not know what province this bafoon lives in but his blindness to how this proposed charter is igniting hatred against all minorities in his province not just because of their head coverings is unbelievable.

I thought as a visible minority he would have some insight on what it is like to be singled out as a minority because you look different and/or people presume you are some ooga booga evil Zionist terrorist cannibal boogy man

Then again a lot of people who know what it is like to be stereotyped when its politically convenient to their own political opinions embrace the politics of hatred and think it appropriate to select out other minorities and scream hatred at them. You know how that is Black Dog. False consciousness I guess.

I am surprised they did not ban anyone from wearing rainbow flags in the charter.

Then again yaybe they are planning to add it after Madame Marois reviews the law. She also forgot to stipulate big noses are unacceptable. Then again many Quebecers of French descent have that Charles DeGaulles nose so maybe she will skip that one. Also I think people with beards but no mustaches missed her attention.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Rue

[Moonlight Graham]

I wonder how that guy would feel if I told him "This is our home! Speak English!"

I'd like to think this whole "minority s**ts on other minorities" is one of those things where a kid who get bullied bullies another kid in turn. But Quebec can't really be said to be facing anything in terms of oppression (all its grievances are historic, unlike some other groups I could name), so I guess they are just dicks.

Haha thumbs up. The PQ needs to learn that Quebec isn't just a place where French white Catholics live.