The thoughtful article featured in this post was published in French in the Journal de Montréal on April 1, 2022 [no, not April Fool 🙂 and if you do not believe Bambi, here is the link: https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2022/04/01/le-mensonge-sur-lequel-repose-la-discrimination-positive).
With the help of her faithful friend Google Translate, Bambi took the time to translate it for you, inserting a couple of her comments here and there.
Dr. Bock-Côté’s article begins here:
“Positive discrimination” programs are based on a thesis that is false, but which is nevertheless treated as official truth by the dominant ideology: Western societies practice systemic discrimination against “minorities”.
It would therefore be necessary to put in place reverse discrimination mechanisms to allow “disadvantaged” groups to obtain positions to which they would not have access.
Injustice
This flawed sociological thesis is an absolute falsehood, and even more so when we talk about Québec [Bambi happens to agree].
We must get rid of certain commonplaces such as that “white men have monopolized power for 2000 years” [Despite the good intentions of many of the people endorsing this view, Bambi finds it sad, and even absurd, to divide people according to their skin colour or, mind you, any other identity-based characteristic like religions, etc. She prefers to focus on our shared humanity and on the uniqueness AND richness of each person we encounter in life. We walk together a certain journey, short or long, and we learn from each other].
Who affirms this spreads without embarrassment his/her non-sense [“sa bêtise” in the original French text] and lack of culture.
Some reminders here: The significant demographic presence of “racial” minorities is more than recent in the history of Québec. Therefore, social organization could not be based on their repression.
French Canadians, white as they were, were themselves treated as negligible numbers at home. To see the world through the prism of race, we forget that countries are not interchangeable [Bambi agrees], and that Québec is not a state in the southern United States [indeed. In turn, this state is not Québec].
Advocates of affirmative action keep repeating confusing statistics they don’t understand. They also forget the fact that a statistical disparity is not necessarily explained by a discriminatory system [related to this, Bambi recommends the excellent book of Mr. Kenny Xu, “An inconvenient minority”; For instance, there are also culturally-based preferences, which have nothing to do with discrimination, like for instance Lebanese youth seen massively more in an Engineering program than in a psychology program. Are they being discriminated at in psychology? No, they are not. We can also think of Québeckers who happen to be of African origins found more, and excelling, in running or those with a black skin present in the music genre called jazz, etc.].
Québec
There is no systemic racism in Québec [Bambi happens to agree; she has lived there for over 15 years]. But there is systematic discrimination against white men in particular, in cultural and intellectual circles, as we have seen at Laval University [How sad, again despite any noble intention]. This racial discrimination against white men is trivialized and widespread.
Let us recall an elementary principle: refusing a black man because he is black is racism. Refusing a white man because he is white is racism too [absolutely; same analogy with what happened during the Lebanese 15-year-long war to civilians of all confessions: Muslim, Druze, Christian, Jewish, Atheist, etc.].
Those who defend positive discrimination defend a racism that they consider acceptable because it targets white people [again, despite the stated, or maybe even heart-felt good intention, such programs come with long-term social toxicity… Of course, Bambi can be wrong. However, from her second life in a country with religion-based quotas deeply rooted in its political sector, she is convinced of the following: racial-based policies may lead to social tension. Little by little, this tension may result in a strife. Pushed to the extreme, this can destroy a country…].”
