Veiling racism
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The reasonable accommodation debate had set the ground for immigrants and minorities to be seen as a threat to Quebec’s national history and identity. While the Bouchard-Taylor Commission was erected to address different cases in which the practices of minorities or immigrants were forbidden and claimed to be fighting inequality and discrimination, it paradoxically reinforced the “crisis” and the racial hierarchy underlying it (Mahrouse 94).
By adopting the older version of the definition of racism, they made it harder to detect implicit and systemic forms of racism. They were themselves unable to see that this very commission was itself racist by making French-Quebecois decide on which practices minorities and immigrants were allowed to exercise in Quebec. Making them the judges of what was tolerable or not, inherently positioning their Western culture as the superior one (Mahrouse 90). It indeed relates to Edward Said’s analysis of Orientalism in which he also argues that Westerners use Orientalism as a way to uplift their identity by placing themselves in contrast to the “Orient” (Said). Moreover, they position themselves as experts, behind which they can hide racism and xenophobia, arguing they know what is better for everyone.
Birge’s article also conveys this idea by arguing that the Quebecois government has been using narratives of gender equality and sexual freedoms to frame immigrants, especially Muslims, as homophobic and dangerous for women. Mainstream feminist discourse largely participates in creating this narrative, dramatically overlooking intersectionality. Homonationalism, coined by Puar, intervene in making sexual freedom both a civilizational competency (Bilge 306) and a form of pinkwashing, concealing racism and cultural discrimination.
Thus, the Bouchard-Taylor Comission has made the reasonable accommodation debate omnipresent in Quebec, with the goal of protecting Quebec's identity from the threat of the “other”. Gender/sexuality protection is embedded in this discourse, portraying multiculturalism as a threat. In the colorblind/raceless framework of our times, cultural practices are used as a proxy for race (Bilge 315), concealed under “modern” values, human rights, and progressive initiatives such as the Bouchard-Taylor Commission.