Speak White

Speak White is a racial slur used by Anglophone Canadians against those who use another language in public. The denigration inspired the Québec writer Michèle Lalonde to write a poem in French in 1968 . It was recited for the first time in 1970, and four years later it was published by the Montréal publishing house Éditions de l'Hexagone. It denounced the disadvantageous situation of the Francophones in Québec and is in a tone accusing the English-speaking minority. Her poem is aimed primarily at Anglo-Canada, with references to British and American references such as Shakespeare , Keats , the Thames , Potomac and Wall Street as its symbols of linguistic oppression.

1980 Speak White was processed as a short film by the filmmakers Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin; In the six-minute work, the actress Marie Eykel read the poem. It was released by the National Film Board of Canada .

The Italo-Québec journalist Marco Micone then also wrote a poem, which he Speak What? (like “What should I speak?”), in which he affirmed the same problems for the allophone immigrants in the province as the French speakers and advocated more social inclusion . The poem Speak White was read in its entirety by Robert Lepage in his one-man play "887", which premiered in Vancouver in 2015 and was also performed at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival in Scotland in August of the same year.

origin

Speak White is a racial slur against non-Anglophones in Canada by English speakers. In 1963 André Laurendeau recorded in his diary during the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission that Anglo-Canadians shouted the defamation to the Francophones and speculated about whether it was a loan from the southern states of the USA . It was also reported that the charge was used against newcomers to Canada.

See also

• Nègres blancs d'Amérique
• Le livre noir du Canada Anglais
• Quebec bashing
• Musée de l'Amérique francophone in Québec

literature

• Michèle Lalonde: Speak White. Les murs ont la parole . L'Hexagone, Montréal 1974

Web links

• Speak White : poem in the French original
• Speak White : poem in English
• National Film Board (French)
• German version (slightly shortened) in the dissertation: Souvenir: Historical Images and Identity References in the Context of Language and National Culture (Québec) , by Jörg Seifarth, HU Berlin 2004 (bilingual English / German, pp. 128f .; the whole diss. as Full text)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Debates - No. 29 - February 1, 2005, Speeches by Senators
2. ↑ http ://www. britica.com/eb/article-42340/Canadian-literature#915409.hook
3. ↑ Bilan du Siècle (fr)
4. ↑ http://www.bridica.com/eb/article-258879/Canadian-literature#915553.hook
5. ↑ Denis Monière : André Laurendeau et le destin d'un peuple . Bibliothèque Paul-Émile-Boulet de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Saguenay / Canada 1983, p. 324.
6. ↑ Larry Zolf, "Speak white." CBC News. March 7, 2007. Summary , completely on Vigile.net ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.