‘For Us by Us’ has never been more important than RIGHT NOW!

Nelly Bassily
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read

You know that phrase: “It’s not everyday you see a [insert unusual event or situation here]. Unfortunately, for racialized folks in the province of Quebec, living on unceded indigenous land in Tiotia:ke (also known as Montreal) in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka and in Kepék (Quebec City) in the Mi’kmaq language, in Kaná:ta (Canada), racism is an everyday occurence. And, in the past 8 months in Quebec, systemic racism and, manifestly anti-Black racism, keep reoccurring, in-step with the rise in prominence and visibility of far-right fascist groups and ideologies. (Quebec, much like its neighbour to the South, is not immune to the worldwide rise in fascisms)

In January 2017, we witnessed a deadly terrorist attack in a Mosque in Quebec city, with all the subsequent Islamophobic vitriol and acts of vandalism on mosques and even the attempted refusal to grant Muslims a cemetery in which to bury their dead that followed this attack. In June 2017, we saw an awful display of racism during the St-Jean Baptist Day parade. In July 2017, Pierre Coriolan cruelly and unjustifiably died at the hands of Montreal’s SPVM, because at the intersections of black and disabled, you will find unbridled and deadly police brutality. And in the past few weeks, there has been overt and unabashed racism and xenophobia on display over the arrival of Haïtian asylum seekers in Quebec. And even more recently, La Meute (A Québecois white supremacist group) displayed their vitriolic hate in Quebec City, while Antifa counter white supremacy protesters were being tear-gassed and arrested.

And, the cherry on top of this shitty Sundae was today’s putrid mix of racism and misogyny on inglorious display on the front page of Quebec’s prime trash mainstream newspaper: Le Journal de Montréal!

Excerpt from the putrid mix of racism and misogyny written by Richard Martineau, and published in Le Journal de Montreal.

Having a white, heterosexual, cisgender Québecois man #whitemansplaining that systemic racism doesn’t exist and rape culture is a myth is beyond violent. His #whitemansplaining arrogantly tells us that if you’re a person of colour, woman, gay, or poor, you’re lucky, because you live in the best of places, and therefore, you must stop complaining. (Because clearly, whitemansplainer knows about your lived-experiences better than you do!) Thanks dude, your unintelligent diatribe is exactly the last thing anyone needs to read in a widely circulated newspaper in Quebec. Of course, capitalism (in the form of printing Martineau’s populist turd-of-an-article on the front page in order to sell papers and generate more clicks on a website) and racism and misogyny (in the form of Martineau overlooking his hetero-patriarchal, white privilege like a champ) worked hand-in-hand to bring us these grotesque lies.

Flipping the negative script when it comes to narratives that usually revolve around racialized communities is no easy task. Shining big and bright spotlights on the genius of indigenous, Black and non-black people of colour communities in Montreal, in Quebec, and generally in the world is ever-the-more-important yet daunting all-at-once because mainstream media have relentlessly reinforced negative stereotypes about racialized communities .

But flipping the script is possible and it means more, better and accurate representation of racialized folks by racialized folks themselves.

Inside Racines bookstore.

IN comes wonderful establishments like Racines, a FOR US BY US bookstore founded by the visionary and tireless Gabriella Kinté. Rooted in Montréal-Nord, Racines breathes necessary life into the whitewashed Quebec landscape by bridging the misrepresentation gap. Racines shows us that racialized communities exist and thrive, CAN and MUST take up space, CAN be self-reliant, CAN be the owners of their positive narratives and CAN center the most marginalized amongst us. Chief among the examples of how this elevation is done are events like the Queer and Trans People of Colour Authors’ Day that recently happened at Racines.

Poster for the Racines event created by the very talented The Creative Kay.

Initiatives like Racines show us, in practice, how to center the most marginalized amongst us, which means centring Indigenous, Black, brown woman, queer, gender non-confirming, trans, disabled, economically-poor, undocumented, immigrant and Muslim folks (and especially folks at the intersections of these varied and complexe identities) within our communities. Because that’s the only way we will rise above the noise that tries to deny people of colour’s lived experiences of systemic racism and understand each other in our full humanity.

Unfortunately, as hard as some try to deny it, SYSTEMIC RACISM IS REAL and so is RAPE CULTURE.

And there is no way to collectively create our paths to liberation without actions that center us, and allow us to thrive.

Our struggles and freedom from those struggles are interconnected.

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Nelly Bassily

Written by

Feminist. Wanting a better world for all. Co-creating change with a feminist flare. Media maker.

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