In the wake of the CRTC’s decision on the complaint about the use of the word “negro” at Radio-Canada, some people argued for the use of this word without restriction. This is the case of M.me Edith Mukakayumba, who presents herself as a Rwandan immigrant living in Quebec since 1974, and who published a text entitled “Le mot en n vu de l’intérieur” (The duty, July 20, 2022), in which she argues for the use of the word “nigger”. Immigrating like her, I take the opposite view of this position which trivializes racism.
First, M.me Mukakayumba seems to trivialize this word when she writes: “It happened to me to have been called a negress. I saw nothing serious in it, except ignorance or bad faith, on occasion, in the tone. […] All the fuss around this topic since the start of 2022 has only created confusion and masked the real issues. I am surprised by such an assertion. For meme Mukakayumba, being called a “nigger” is commonplace. However, this word is not trivial. It carries a whole particular representation of black people that we must rightly challenge by rejecting its use.
As Richard B. Moore reminds us, the word ‘nigger’ is “a symbol that tells people how to treat you, and ‘nigger’ says to treat you like a slave, like an inferior and savage, like a beast.” Yesterday and today, this word basically has a pejorative connotation. It dehumanizes the Black insofar as it sends him back solely to his body.
Black people are defined by their sensual attributes: skin, noise, smell, excessive sex, etc. This is why “anti-black racism is body racism” (Fabrice Olivet, At the risk of the race). It does not matter that this representation is false, the fact remains that its consequences on black people are undeniable. Employment discrimination, racial profiling, mass black incarceration, etc. are the results of the negrification of black.
The fact of being an immigrant from Africa and perhaps not having experienced daily racism in Africa as is the case with blacks in Abya Yala (the indigenous name for the American continent) does not is not an excuse for trivializing the use of the word “nigger”.
The African immigrant in Abya Yala has an obligation to read about the structural negrophobia that reigns there and to reclaim the heritage of black struggles, if he has not done so before immigrating. Unlike other immigrants, the black who immigrates to the lands of Abya Yala should not only consider himself an immigrant. It must embrace the multi-secular heritage of black people in this land of Abya Yala built on the backs of indigenous peoples and Africans for five centuries.
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Additionally, M.me Mukakyumba ends his comment in apotheosis: “I would not like to end this text without saying to the people of Quebec, who have welcomed me and pampered me for almost 50 years, that I love him with all my heart and that he is the best in the world. » Mme Mukakayumba bluntly asserts that Quebec is the best country in the world. I imagine René Lévesque or Pierre Bourgault retorting: “Quebec is neither inferior nor superior to the others; he simply wants to be master of his destiny. Sometimes you don’t have to offer more than what the customer asks for. According to her, any criticism is a sign of disenchantment with Quebec. What a shortcut!
Also, this quote refers to what can be described as navel-gazing. As the author was lucky to be well received, to have good friends, she imagines that it is the same for all black people in Quebec. I have no doubt that there are black people who are lucky enough to be surrounded by anti-racist white people. But it is not so for others (and not all black people in Quebec are immigrants like her). It is not because we have not personally experienced racism that it does not exist.
Moreover, she herself admits to having been subjected to racism since she was treated as a “negress”. But in her casualness, if not by her political unconsciousness, she minimizes such an insult. She should know that her status as a university researcher, as a member of the upper middle class does not protect her and will never protect her against racism. For Malcom X, “a black of the upper class does not exist, because this black takes the same blows as that of the other class. [c’est-à-dire, la masse]. They all take the same hits, and that’s one of the good things about this racist system, because that way we’re one. »
The last thing that caught my attention in the quote from Mme Mukakayumba is his invitation to white people “to beware of racists of all stripes. They are not always the ones we believe. So, for her, denouncing the use of the word “nigger” by white people would make us racist anti-white people. No kidding ! Mme Does Mukakayumba know that the thesis of anti-white racism which she takes up here with joviality is a strategy of disqualification of anti-racist struggles put in place from the 1960s in the United States by both progressive, conservative and extreme right, and which has been taken up everywhere in the West over the years?