Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

There is an incentive for every plausible identity group to be as loud as possible in response to anything that can be construed as a slight or discrimination. Personally, I think it's likely we ain't seen nothing yet, as some of the larger groups haven't asserted their identity much yet in the new politics and are regularly poked in the eye.

I actually had something like this in a previous post, but deleted it. I thought it either would come across the wrong way, or even be perceived as a threat.

Regardless, I think it's basically a question of "when" as opposed to "if" this will manifest itself.

A significant share of the population (particularly the most adamant woke SJW segment) is ill-prepared psychologically and emotionally for this eventuality. To say the least.

While I might be looking forward to a return of a bit of equanimity, I can't say I am looking forward to the frictions it will also inevitably cause.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Yep. I followed the link to the "whiteness theory" Wikipedia page it appears on, and from there I found a page devoted to "whiteness studies."

The whole whiteness thing is interesting because there is a kernel of truth. "White" really is a synthetic identity-marker that came about in slave states and empires to distinguish a certain level of privilege. Before that, we were just English, German, Swedish, whatever; you can easily find old books talking about the peculiarities of the German race or whatever.

That said, history, regrettable though it may be, has left it so that "white" refers to actual people of European descent, so there is a bit of trickery going on where you can be like "eliminate whiteness" and claim you are referring solely to this idea of a privileged stratum for Europeans while sounding a lot like someone with certain intentions towards actual people of (English, German, Swedish, whatever) ancestry.

I actually corrected a Swedish girl in a recent conversation (obnoxious, but I found the whole convo annoying), who referred to Swedish people in Sweden as "whites". I said that this is an Americanism, you are Swedish. Here in Europe, it would be better were we to stick with the original grouping-method of national ancestry such that we have Swedes, Danes, English, Afghans, Iraqis etc. rather than this American idea of "white" and "black" and "brown" which is a pretty low-fidelity way to talk and think.

I understand that Black Americans require the color identifier as they are a people taken by force from their native setting and acculturated into a system where color was the defining factor; they are their own ethnic group. In Europe, though, we would do better to speak of Cameroonians, Sudanese etc., in addition to Germans, Italians and so on.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The whole whiteness thing is interesting because there is a kernel of truth. "White" really is a synthetic identity-marker that came about in slave states and empires to distinguish a certain level of privilege. Before that, we were just English, German, Swedish, whatever; you can easily find old books talking about the peculiarities of the German race or whatever.

That said, history, regrettable though it may be, has left it so that "white" refers to actual people of European descent, so there is a bit of trickery going on where you can be like "eliminate whiteness" and claim you are referring solely to this idea of a privileged stratum for Europeans while sounding a lot like someone with certain intentions towards actual people of (English, German, Swedish, whatever) ancestry.

I actually corrected a Swedish girl in a recent conversation (obnoxious, but I found the whole convo annoying), who referred to Swedish people in Sweden as "whites". I said that this is an Americanism, you are Swedish. Here in Europe, it would be better were we to stick with the original grouping-method of national ancestry such that we have Swedes, Danes, English, Afghans, Iraqis etc. rather than this American idea of "white" and "black" and "brown" which is a pretty low-fidelity way to talk and think.

I understand that Black Americans require the color identifier as they are a people taken by force from their native setting and acculturated into a system where color was the defining factor; they are their own ethnic group. In Europe, though, we would do better to speak of Cameroonians, Sudanese etc., in addition to Germans, Italians and so on.

It actually doesn't make much sense in Canada either, from a socio-historical perspective. (Especially not here in Quebec.)

Among my friends, colleagues and acquaintances of African origins here (people aged roughly 35-55) they don't seem to hang out or have affinities with people based only on skin colour. Some that I am closer to have mentioned they have "few affinities" with black people from the other side of the Atlantic: ie Haitians vis-à-vis West Africans, or vice-versa.

Even among sub-Saharan Africans, people seem to congregate primarily based on national borders (yes, even though they were generally imposed by Europeans), or at least with people from countries that are neighbours in Africa: Senegalese with Malians, Béninois with Togolais, Rwandans with Burundians, etc.

If you do a big "zoom out" from our US-centric vision of things, it makes perfect sense.

Imagine you're an Irish dude from Galway working in Jakarta, and in the cafeteria a bunch of Indonesians really want to introduce you to Dimitri from Sverdlovsk, because "you'll have so much in common..."

Now, I fully realized that what I described with respect to the black people I know might not hold true for younger generations, but I'm not necessarily convinced that's a clear-cut step in the right direction.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Expect more, not less of this going forward.

Of what? Trivializing other grievances by assessing grievance to an inforgraphic from a group nobody had heard of before yesterday, because 'it's 2021'?

Originally Posted by rousseau

(Hey, what happened to the woke thread? It was a sorely needed outlet for comic relief on SSP. I miss the hissy fits and ruffled feathers of the usual suspects who earnestly declared, over and over again, that the only solution was to ignore the thread. Bring it back!)

You'll simply just get it in this thread, anyway. Expect more, not less of this going forward.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

(Hey, what happened to the woke thread? It was a sorely needed outlet for comic relief on SSP. I miss the hissy fits and ruffled feathers of the usual suspects who earnestly declared, over and over again, that the only solution was to ignore the thread. Bring it back!)

It was shut down. As was the racism thread.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Of what? Trivializing other grievances by assessing grievance to an inforgraphic from a group nobody had heard of before yesterday, because 'it's 2021'?

.

Yes, that's exactly my point! Well, sorta. I don't think I mentioned any other groups' grievanaces before anyone else did, did I?

But sure, you can still expect more of this in all sorts of manifestations. Precisely because it's 2021.

And I'd wager you ain't seen nothin' yet. (Not talking about francophones here BTW.)

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Which in French, deliciously translates into ce qui est bon pour pitou, est bon pour minou.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It was shut down. As was the racism thread.

Interesting. It’s not like I actively participated in these threads, but my impression was that the tone was relatively civil. So, is this thread where Evil Acajack will address these topics from now on?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by le calmar

Interesting. It’s not like I actively participated in these threads, but my impression was that the tone was relatively civil. So, is this thread where Evil Acajack will address these topics from now on?

Only if people drag me into it.

I just quoted the dumbass Tweet and reactions to it. (Which are totally on-topic for this thread.)

You guys did the rest.

[Acajack]

People on here should probably thank their lucky stars that no one has brought up Prof. Amir Attaran yet.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by Acajack

People on here should probably thank their lucky stars that no one has brought up Prof. Amir Attaran yet.

I too was surprised it hasn’t been mentioned yet. But as you said in another post, stories like this tend to go unnoticed on this forum.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I actually corrected a Swedish girl in a recent conversation (obnoxious, but I found the whole convo annoying), who referred to Swedish people in Sweden as "whites". I said that this is an Americanism, you are Swedish. Here in Europe, it would be better were we to stick with the original grouping-method of national ancestry such that we have Swedes, Danes, English, Afghans, Iraqis etc. rather than this American idea of "white" and "black" and "brown" which is a pretty low-fidelity way to talk and think.

In Canada you get people lumping French-speaking Canadians into the "whites" group, which is only semi-accurate from a skin colour perspective, and then they often extrapolate from there to assume similarities in goals or advantages and disadvantages. Most of the time, English-speaking Canadians don't even acknowledge or are not aware of English as a second language type issues when it comes to French Canadians, and view French or really culture in general as a kind of aesthetic choice; Quebec is a snowflake for having its own special language. Almost all of us just default to whatever language we were raised with and Quebec is no different. As adults, it is hard to learn a new language.

As you suggest this is a case of misapplying already not so great American concepts to other countries (except no Hispanic ESL stuff north of the border please! Quebec is Alabama, not Texas!). One would hope that we would import the most harmonious and functional cultures from around the world but we just get the loudest one. Maybe a sign of how rudderless Canada is right now. I would have expected Sweden to be a bit more insulated due to language but I guess almost everybody influential there probably speaks English well. That ties in with Quebec too. Quebec culture gets judged in a superficial way by outsiders who are not truly interested in it. Differences are cast as -isms when, if you actually know the details of what is going on, it is much more complicated. Canadians are extreme cultural relativists with most of the world, but not Quebec.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

In Canada you get people lumping French-speaking Canadians into the "whites" group, which is only semi-accurate from a skin colour perspective, and then they often extrapolate from there to assume similarities in goals or advantages and disadvantages. Most of the time, English-speaking Canadians don't even acknowledge or are not aware of English as a second language type issues when it comes to French Canadians, and view French or really culture in general as a kind of aesthetic choice; Quebec is a snowflake for having its own special language. Almost all of us just default to whatever language we were raised with and Quebec is no different. As adults, it is hard to learn a new language.

As you suggest this is a case of misapplying already not so great American concepts to other countries (except no Hispanic ESL stuff north of the border please! Quebec is Alabama, not Texas!). One would hope that we would import the most harmonious and functional cultures from around the world but we just get the loudest one. Maybe a sign of how rudderless Canada is right now. I would have expected Sweden to be a bit more insulated due to language but I guess almost everybody influential there probably speaks English well. That ties in with Quebec too. Quebec culture gets judged in a superficial way by outsiders who are not truly interested in it. Differences are cast as -isms when, if you actually know the details of what is going on, it is much more complicated. Canadians are extreme cultural relativists with most of the world, but not Quebec.

On other forums where the issues of 2020-2021 are more actively discussed than here, I swear Québécois francophones are often spoken about in terms you'd think you would be reserved for people like the Han Chinese. You'd think Tremblays and Gagnons number in the hundreds of millions (or a billion), that they possess the nuclear bomb, and control a superpower state that intimidates and threatens its neighbours extra-territorially, and throws its weight around globally both subtly and not-so-subtly.

Québec über alles I tell ya. They got us all figured out.

(I wouldn't be surprised that peoples like the Swedes and Dutch get spoken about in those terms as well these days, by at least some people when discussing the issues I am referring to.)

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Québec über alles I tell ya. They got us all figured out.

And there is a significant number of French speakers outside of Quebec, who live where their ancestors have lived for a long time, but now make up a small fraction of the population of the provinces they are in, and have traditionally been assimilated and marginalized. They are in a classic minority situation in most provinces, no less than Spanish speakers in many parts of the US.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

And there is a significant number of French speakers outside of Quebec, who live where their ancestors have lived for a long time, but now make up a small fraction of the population of the provinces they are in, and have traditionally been assimilated and marginalized. They are in a classic minority situation in most provinces, closely analogous to Spanish speakers in the Southwest US.

Yes, and they also get constantly crapped on for having "privileges" that other minorities don't have, like their own publicly-funded schools, or (some) government services in their language.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Acajack

People on here should probably thank their lucky stars that no one has brought up Prof. Amir Attaran yet.

You could always just tell us how you feel about it rather than being passive aggressive about it.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

On other forums where the issues of 2020-2021 are more actively discussed than here, I swear Québécois francophones are often spoken about in terms you'd think you would be reserved for people like the Han Chinese. You'd think Tremblays and Gagnons number in the hundreds of millions (or a billion), that they possess the nuclear bomb, and control a superpower state that intimidates and threatens its neighbours extra-territorially, and throws its weight around globally both subtly and not-so-subtly.

Sounds like you should stay away from that forum. It can't be good for your mental health. Better to be here at SSP with more civilized folk.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Sounds like you should stay away from that forum. It can't be good for your mental health. Better to be here at SSP with more civilized folk.

You'll always be my favourites!

[Loco101]

Well March 20, 2021 is la Journée internationale de la Francophonie.

I only really know it because at work (federal public service) we got an email telling us that. I live in a city where about 40% of the population in francophone yet haven't heard anything about it locally. I'm sure that a number of the french-language schools are doing something but I wouldn't know for sure unless I asked my friends and some of my family.

Now the email I got at work was full of apologies to francophone public servants for not treating French as an equal language to English at our agency. Since the pandemic began, all of our important meetings have been in English only. Most of them have been from the regional office in Toronto and it was rare that they would give the chance for employees to ask questions or make comments in French. And no presentation has been done in French at the regional level (Ontario). Timmins is in a federally designated bilingual region (Northeastern Ontario) . The only things that were in French were specific option online meetings concerning topics such as racism, stress and the pandemic because they were for across Canada and there were separate English and French meetings.

I totally get why many francophone and especially those in Quebec are frustrated that French isn't even treated as an equal language to English where it's supposed to be. There are still people out there who think you need to be able to speak French to get a job where I work and also those who think it's necessary for advancement. Not true at all.

[Acajack]

The recent setbacks and dissing of French (even in the federal apparatus) have put even the federal Liberals in defensive mode.

Usually they are don't worry be happy denialists on this file.

[Dengler Avenue]

I was playing Settlers of Catan and checking statistics. Then I saw an ad geared towards Franco-Ontarians... in English...