"Speak White" is a French-language poem written by Canadian poet Michèle Lalonde in 1968, and condemns the linguistic, cultural, and economic exploitation and oppression of French-speaking Canadians, especially the Québécois, by the English language and Anglo-American culture.[1] The poem was published in 1974 by Quebec publisher L'Héxagone, and was recited by Lalonde during the 1968 performance Chansons et poèmes de résistance (Songs and Poems of the Resistance) in support of the imprisoned Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) leaders Pierre Vallières and Charles Gagnon, and again at the 1970 cultural event Nuit de la poésie (Night of Poetry) in Montréal.[2][3] Responses to Lalonde's work include a 1980 short film of the same name by directors Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin, a number of reinterpretations, and "Speak What," a 1989 political poem by Marco Micone.

Derogatory use of the expression "speak white"

It is alleged that the first known instance of derogatory use of the phrase "speak white" against French-speaking Canadians occurred on October 12, 1889, when member of the Canadian Liberal party Henri Bourassa was booed by English-speaking members of the parliament and shouted at to "Speak White!" during debates in the Canadian House of Commons on Canada's engagement in the Second Boer War. This is, however, not true, as the Second Boer War was between 1899 and 1902) The controversial Dictionnaire québécois-français has an entry from a November 2, 1963 Maclean’s article: “for every twenty French Canadians you encounter in my house or yours, fifteen can affirm that they have been treated to the discreditable ‘speak white.’”[4]

On March 7, 2007, journalist Larry Zolf published an article called "Speak White" on CBC News Online, giving anecdotal evidence of Canadian immigrants being told to "speak white" by hostile English-speaking Canadians.[5] In the same article, Zolf also criticizes then-Liberal Party candidate Stéphane Dion, wanting to tell him to "speaking white" for Dion's "mangling the English language," and citing his lack of English proficiency as the reason for the candidate's unpopularity with English-speaking Canadian voters.[6]

Reading and writing the poem

Written in October 1968, the activist poem "Speak White" by Quebec poet Michèle Lalonde references the expression's derogatory use against French-speaking Canadians, and the work as a whole rejects the imposition of the English language and Anglo-American culture, and denounces the political and economic oppression of the French language and those who speak it.[1] The poem was intended to be read on stage by Canadian comedian Michelle Rossignol during a show entitled Chansons et poèmes de la Résistance (Songs and poems of the resistance), but it was Michele Lalonde who finally recited the poem.[3] The show, which brought together artists including Robert Charlebois, Yvon Deschamps, et Gaston Miron, was organized to support the cause of Pierre Vallières and Charles Gagnon, who had just been imprisoned for their activities within the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). Both the written poem and its performance were a part of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, a cultural movement celebrating French-Canadian language, culture, and identity.[1]

Following the example of the Nègres blancs d'Amérique by Pierre Vallières, Speak White equates the racism endured by Black Americans and the colonization that colonized people were subjected to by colonial empires, to the linguistic discrimination experienced by French-speaking Quebeckers.[7][6] These two texts are commonly thought to be a part of a movement by nationalist intellectuals to appropriate négritude (movement and usage as a term).[8] Additionally, Lalonde had remarked in a 1968 interview that “language here is equivalent to color for the Black American. The French Language, it is our Black color!”[1][9]

However, because the phrase "speak white" has been used by anglophones against francophones since the end of the nineteenth century, the claim that Quebec nationalists have appropriated the négritude movement and term during the 1960s and 1970s must be carefully regarded, if not reconsidered, as this term was historically imposed on them. The expression "speak white" was not coined by nationalist intellectuals, so the parallel between the condition of French-speaking Canadians and Afro-Americans in the United States primarily stems from the use of the expression by Anglophones. The Quebec nationalist discourse of the 1970s was a part of a much broader anti-colonialist vocabulary than solely the question of American Blackness, recognizing, for example, a kinship with the struggles waged against in Algeria and Vietnam, as mentioned in the poem by Michèle Lalonde.

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ)'s proximity with revolutionary and anticolonial movements in Cuba, South America, Palestine, and Algeria, as well as with the Black Panthers in the United States, illustrates the extent to which Quebec nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s claimed to be a part of a global anti-imperialist movement, of which négritude was one of many faces.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Ruschiensky, Carmen (November 8, 2019). "Revisiting "Speak White": A lieu de mémoire Lost and Found in Translation". TTR. 31 (2): 65–87. doi:10.7202/1065569ar – via érudit.
  2. ↑ ""Poèmes et chants de la résistance II", 50 ans plus tard". Le Devoir (in French). 26 January 2021. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
  3. 1 2 "40e anniversaire de " Speak White " de Michèle Lalonde | L'aut'journal". lautjournal.info. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
  4. ↑ Graham, Gwethalyn; Chaput Rolland, Solange (November 2, 1963). "How two women feel about one Canada—or two". Maclean's. Vol. 76, no. 21, “How many Canadiens want to break up Canada? Who are they? How fast is the movement growing?”. Toronto. pp. 19, 53–59.
    In the course of this Canadian tour I realized that the expression “speak white”, by which certain English Canadians mean that we are to switch to English at once, is always current in our country. ... Whatever their background, they exist and there are many of them.
    You have even had to admit their existence in the very heart of Quebec since, for every twenty French Canadians you encounter in my house or yours, fifteen can affirm that they have been treated to the discreditable “speak white.” ...
    I had already received such an order in Montreal, but the same I jumped when ... a very chic English woman in Vancouver frightened me with it because I had inadvertently addressed them in my own language.
    I should add that the lady asked me in these exact words: “Do you speak white?” — and that she didn’t understand why I replied curtly in English, “No, I don’t,” or why I walked out on the spot.
    ... I could cite names, examples and places, even in Montreal, where this odious phrase is still thrown in our faces by English Canadians. (p. 56)
    — Solange Chaput Rolland
  5. ↑ "CBC News: Analysis & Viewpoint: Larry Zolf". 2007-03-05. Archived from the original on 5 March 2007. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
  6. 1 2 Gaëtan Dostie (1 June 1974). "Entrevue de Michèle Lalonde". Le Journal: 3.
    Speak White, c’est la protestation des Nègres blancs d’Amérique. La langue ici est l’équivalent de la couleur pour le noir américain. La langue française, c’est notre couleur noire.
  7. ↑ Plamondon, Jean-François (2015-08-01). "Corrie Scott, De Groulx à Laferrière. Un parcours de la race dans la littérature québécoise". Studi Francesi (176 (LIX | II)): 425–426. doi:10.4000/studifrancesi.995. ISSN 0039-2944. S2CID 184158742.
  8. ↑ Jézéquel, Pascal; Juin, Philippe Paul; Campone, Mario (June 2010). "" Bioinfomique " : un nouveau mot pour un nouveau champ de recherche". Bulletin du Cancer. 101 (2): 118–119. doi:10.1684/bdc.2014.1893. ISSN 0007-4551. PMID 24556089 – via érudit.
  9. ↑ Mezei, Kathy (21 February 2014). "Bilingualism and Translation in/of Michèle Lalonde's Speak White". The Translator. 4 (2): 229–247. doi:10.1080/13556509.1998.10799021 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  10. ↑ ICI.Radio-Canada.ca. "Les ambitions internationales du FLQ". Radio-Canada.ca (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2021-12-13.
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