Such is the case with a Facebook video that has nothing less than rocked the foundations of Quebec society and propelled the entire province into much-needed reflection and introspection on racism, especially institutionalized racism where companies, organizations, government offices, our law enforcement, health, and social institutions discriminate against minorities in a systematic and pervasive manner.
The short video in question was shot by a native woman in a hospital in Joliette who was not only treated with abject contempt but actually died of neglect at the hands of doctors and nurses who assumed that she was simply impaired (like so many unfortunate native patients) rather than facing a very major health crisis.
After hearing damning and devastating evidence, the coroner's inquest into Joyce Echaquan's death concluded rightly that institutional racism contributed to her demise, a notion that old school politicians and nationalist journalists have refused to accept out of hand.
I don’t agree when we say there’s a system,” says Premier Legault, refusing to recognize systemic racism exists in Quebec,
Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet : While “there are individuals that are racist,” “one should avoid saying that all individuals in that particular group are racist.
The new leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says he prefers the term institutional racism over systemic racism because it puts the focus on concretely solving the problem where it exists and not just blaming a system.
As for the nationalist media, the outrage was palpable, where the idea that Quebec faces an existential crisis over racism is a vile and malevolent construct, conceived by enemies of the Quebec 'nation.'
Richard Martineau in Le Journal du Montreal "
The worst part is that during this time, all these good little Quebecers who dream of seeing François Legault admit that there is indeed "systemic racism" in Quebec say absolutely nothing about the federal Indian law! ...
"Fortunately, our PM stands up to them and refuses to give in to their blackmail."Mathieu Bock-Coté in Le Journal du Montreal
"The grand Liberal-Solidaire coalition, the 'PLQS,' this week sought to use the commemoration of the tragic death of Joyce Echaquan in an odious way to force François Legault to bend his knees to the theory of systemic racism.
Raymond Parent in Le Journal du Montreal
"I can understand the premier of Quebec's reluctance to recognize systemic discrimination and I would tend to adopt the same posture if I were in his shoes.
He must consider all the legal impacts that such recognition may have on our political and social choices. Plus, it's hard to strike up a dialogue with someone who asks you to be on your knees at the start."
Now before you go off on Quebecers as inherently and unrepentantly racist, it's interesting to note that despite the government's denial and the media's general support for the notion that Quebec doesn't suffer from institutional and systemic racism, the majority of Quebecers aren't buying it.
In a poll conducted last week, more than two-thirds of Quebecers believe the opposite of what the government and the media are spoon-feeding them, that is that institutional racism is a serious problem here in Quebec.
As I said, the sad video of the racist treatment of Joyce Echaquan at the hands of hospital staff is burned into our collective conscience and all the hand-wringing and excuses won't make it go away. Nobody who viewed the video can un-see it and only the cold-hearted and truly racist cannot help but feeling a little shame and a lot of anger.
The coroner who wrote the damning report highlighted that without the video, the death due to racism, like so many other cases, would go unnoticed and unreported.
Such is the power of video evidence.
At the inquiry, those hurling the abuse were defensive and unapologetic. They were tired and perhaps the video was taken out of context....blah..blah..blah.
No remorse or apology, just excuses, and denial. It's a shameful analogy for the Quebec establishment.
Years ago, I wrote about a qualified Muslim candidate who was tired of submitting his resume without ever getting an interview. He resubmitted his candidature with an identical C/V, but with a French name instead of his clearly Arab name.
You can guess the result. The C/V with the Arab name was rejected and the identical C/V with a French name was offered an interview.
This in a government office and the very definition of is institutional racism.
The candidate sued and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, but never received an apology and for the office involved it was back to business as usual.
But the winds of change are blowing and in reaction to the poll and because of the public pressure. those denying institutional racism are changing their tune.
The new talking point is that perhaps Quebec does suffer from institutional racism but no more so than the rest of Canada.
At least it's a positive step forward and the hard conversation has been opened up.
The public has made it clear that Premier's position is not one they share and that he's going to have to change his tune to remain relevant.
That said, there remains a deep and knee-jerk defensiveness in the old guard to anybody or anything that challenges the idea of Quebec as a less-than-perfect society.
In his latest article in Le Journal du Montreal, Joseph Facal goes off pas a peu près on natives in a rageful and hateful rant, one that I've not seen in a while.
I've done my best to translate for those who have no French, but for those who want to capture the nuance of the original, click on the link
Autochtones: une récupération qui donne la nausée
Aboriginal people, as one of my best readers put it, didn’t have it easy in Canada.
But am I the only one who found that this necessary awareness quickly turned into a vulgar display of ignorance, pretension and hypocrisy?
The Aboriginal cause has become, for many, the new way to show off one's political-correctness and virtue-signalling, especially when it does not require any sacrifice. The Prime Minister of Canada improvises a public holiday, sheds crocodile tears and puts feathers on his head. Lightweight teachers who can't write a sentence without making ten mistakes want to "indigenize" their lesson plans and look with suspicion at their colleagues who refuse drink the Kool-aid. Others, hand on heart, want to hire an indigenous teacher, just one, even if it means lowering the criteria, just to say to themselves that they have helped to right a historic wrong. Still others are paid to convince us that indigenous traditional knowledge should be equated with experimental science, as if herbs cured cancer. At Radio-Blablabla, at Le Devoir, in all the media, young journalists display moral certitude proportional to their ignorance.
We accept the bullshit about Montreal, supposedly un-ceded territory, a claim demolished by any non-militant historian, considering it was the site where the Great Peace Treaty of 1701 was signed, precisely because it was seen as relatively neutral. Wrinkled journalists, who refuse to grow old and relive May 68, lecture their flock while well installed in the bourgeois comfort of Outremont. The students, also wanting to make history, are looking for a cause that is not too compelling. And so they are going to insult Legault as “ti-mononcle”, wear an orange sweater, light a candle, put a “Solidarity with Joyce” on their Facebook page, “decolonize” the libraries and sing Imagine.
The burden will be borne and the conscience appeased.
The big, big, big crusade of all these small, medium and large hypocrites is that François Legault must recognize the “systemic” character of racism. We haven't read two books, but we are convinced, yes, ma'am, that they were truly "genocided", not "culturally", no, "genocided" period.
What, you deny it? Shame !
The smartest have understood that there is a new profitable avenue here: jobs, media visibility, grants, dissertations and theses, etc. Everything is spectacle, everything is display, everything is recycling, everything is small steps towards great professions of faith.
But all this hypocrisy and drama is just business for the most part.
Almost all of the posers from the entertainment industry are first and foremost concerned with self-promotion.
The truth, the real truth, in many indigenous communities, is less glowing: under-education, drug addiction, despair, domestic violence, billions spent who-knows-where, illegal trafficking of all kinds, etc. We prefer not to look at it too closely. It might mar the romantic images.
Our society recycles everything. The important thing is that the misfortune of some can become the "business" of others.
That's quite a blast and leaves me wondering what is the point of the article is.
Why exactly did Mr. Facal write the article?
Is it somehow an explanation as to why Natives should be treated harshly, discriminated against, and left to die in our hospitals?
