Speak White

Speak White
Directed by Pierre Falardeau
Julien Poulin
Written by Michèle Lalonde (poem)
Release date
  • 1980 (1980)
Running time
 Short: 6 min.
Country Canada
Language French

Speak White is a racist insult used by English-speaking Canadians against those who speak other languages in public, especially French Canadians.[1] The slur inspired a French language poem composed by Québécois writer Michèle Lalonde in 1968. It was first recited in 1970 during the landmark Nuit de la Poésie and was published in 1974 by Éditions de l'Hexagone, Montreal. It denounced the poor situation of French-speakers in Quebec and takes the tone of a collective complaint against English-speaking Quebecers.[2][3] Her poem is directed primarily at English Canada, although often citing British and American references such as Shakespeare, Keats, the Thames, the Potomac and Wall Street as its symbols of linguistic oppression.

The 1980 short film Speak White by filmmakers Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin features actress Marie Eykel reading Lalonde's poem. It was released by the National Film Board of Canada.

In 1989, the Italian-Quebecer journalist and playwright Marco Micone wrote a poem in response called Speak What?, depicting allophone immigrants as the same oppressed class as the Québécois in Quebec, and calling for a more inclusive society.[4] The poem "Speak White" is an integral part of a one-man play by Robert Lepage "887" which premiered in Toronto in 2015, and was also performed in August 2015 at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival in Scotland.

Origin

Speak White is a racist insult used by English-speaking Canadians against those who speak other languages in public.[5] André Laurendeau recorded anecdotal evidence in his 1963 journal during the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission that English Canadians would hurl the phrase at French Canadians outside Quebec, and speculated that it was borrowed from the Southern United States.[6] Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the phrase was used against immigrants.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Debates - Issue 29 - February 1, 2005, SENATORS' STATEMENTS
  2. ↑ "Canadian literature: The 'Quiet Revolution'". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
  3. ↑ Bilan du Siècle (fr)
  4. ↑ "Canadian Literature: The cosmopolitan culture of French Canada and Quebec". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
  5. ↑ Debates - Issue 29 - February 1, 2005, SENATORS' STATEMENTS
  6. ↑ Monière, Denis (1983). André Laurendeau et le destin d’un peuple. Saguenay, Canada: Bibliothèque Paul-Émile-Boulet de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. p. 324. []
  7. ↑ Larry Zolf, "Speak white"., CBC News. 7 March 2007. Summary, Full version still available on Vigile.net Archived 2013-06-22 at the Wayback Machine.
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