A case, to say the least, has been making headlines for a few days: “black” activists have censored the “black” storyteller Franck Sylvestre who presents a show for children featuring a “black” puppet. The appearance of the latter would apparently have the same effect as a blackface.
His show was canceled in Beaconsfield, but it remains on view today at the Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée, in Montreal. This controversy, which has crossed our borders and is now attracting the attention of our French cousins, highlights a reality: the hypocrisy behind the anti-racist movement.
One of the organizations of “black” activists behind this saga, the Red Coalition, which defines itself as a pressure group fighting in particular against systemic racism, is thus striving to put a spoke in the wheels of a “black” artist using racist attacks.
Friday, one of the directors of this association, Alain Babineau, went there with several tweets revealing his state of mind, qualifying among other things Franck Sylvestre as “good black”, an epithet that no “White” could pronounce without causing a scandal.
Going after the House of Haiti, an organization he accuses of supporting “the continuity of racism in our beautiful province” because he supports Mr. Sylvestre, he also insulted this artist with words covered by inviting him to change planets if he does not understand that his puppet is unacceptable in a North American context. These words are strangely reminiscent of the racist remark “If you’re not happy, go home”, which seems to have been revisited for the purposes of the cause. It’s a safe bet that in normal times, this activist would climb the curtains if one of his flock was made to say such things.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Franck Sylvestre and his puppet
Mr. Babineau did not stop there. He went there with this tirade: “When will the black communities of Montreal speak with one voice? Unfortunately, there are far too many “sold people” who think only of their own little happiness by trying not to displease their “master”! Let’s imagine for a moment that a white-skinned person had called a “Black” a “soldier” wanting to please his white “master”. The comment would have immediately been called racist, and with good reason.
Attacking someone based on the color of their skin is simply not acceptable. By acting in this way, Alain Babineau goes against the values he claims to defend.
Thus, while pushing a rallying cry, this activist went there with contemptuous remarks towards those whom he seems to consider as traitors. Ironically, his clumsy attempt to rally the troops is more likely to scare away many “black” citizens who wish to stay away from such polarizing discourse. That activists criticize Mr. Sylvestre’s show, fine, but that Mr. Babineau tries to definitively eliminate this papier-mâché puppet by evoking in addition the ethnicity of its creator, that does not pass.
It is time that we stop trembling in the face of this tiny minority of power-hungry activists who speak only in their own name, degrading the social climate and distorting the true meaning of the fight against racism.
And this is all the more true for our elected officials. Under what pretext should we give such visibility to anti-racist groups that reinforce stereotypes by implying that all “Blacks” think the same? This saga highlights what many of us already know: these privileged “black” activists defend ideologies before defending individuals. They demonstrate it here by leading an unsightly charge against one of “theirs” who, visibly, does not adhere to their dogmatic ideas.
Mr. Sylvestre was attacked because he is “black”. The inadmissible comments and hypocrisy of Mr. Babineau and his organization must be denounced.
* Co-signatories: Frédéric Bastien, co-founder of the Association of Quebecers United Against Racialism (AQUR) and Isabel Dion, President of the Citizenship Commission of the Bloc Québécois