17 June 20
Michaelle Jean is no one to speak of systemic racism in Canada, or Quebec, as she has. If anything, she has been the beneficiary of reverse discrimination, and nothing in her life has been impaired by racism; quite the opposite.
Jean came to Canada at age eleven as a refugee from Haiti. She attended university in Canada and taught at universities both here and abroad. She was employed by the CBC and Radio-Canada. She was appointed Governor-General of Canada, replacing Adrienne Clarkson (herself of Chinese extraction), and later became Secretary-General of La Francophonie.
She was appointed GG despite suspicious of Quebec separatist leaning and her French citizenship, which she had to renounce. But the fact that she was black, female, francophone, and an immigrant with an attractive overbite made the political optics of her appointment irresistible. To demonstrate a broadmindedness and the absence of prejudice, she got the job.
Now, however, this Haitian refugee speaks of Canada’s “long legacy of hatred from the time of colonial conquest based on white supremacy.” And “It’s simply irresponsible to deny racism in Canada against blacks and Indigenous.”
That’s gratitude for you. It’s not like she speaks from personal experience.
My suggestion is we revoke Jean’s landed immigrant status and send her packing back to Port-au-Prince, where she’ll just have to make do without a security detail and a limo driver. But she’ll be free of Canadian racism.
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