When is a racial slur not a racial slur?

Politics International Politics
#1

[quote=“The National Post”]"The reality is these countries are not just working to create jobs in sweatshops,” he said Wednesday to students in Trois Rivières. “When I was in Boston, where I spent a year, I was surprised to see that on campus about one-third of the students doing their bachelor’s degrees had slanting eyes.”

[/quote]

Andre Bosclaire made the comment during a speech on education, warning Quebeckers of the perils of too many Asian students. Far from apologizing to the Asian community, Mr. Bosclaire defended his racial slur with another: It’s only racist if you say it in English :loco:

For those of you not in the know, the Party Quebecois blamed their failed bid for Quebec seccession from Canada (1995) on Jews, and the ethnic vote.

Maybe Mr. Hitler should apply for Quebec citizenship?

National Post Article

#2

:laughing: Reactionary nationalists just can’t help themselves, can they? There’s always got to be a boogie man. In Quebec, it’s anglos, money, and the ethnic vote. Oh, yeah, jews, arabs, and blacks too.

Doubly stupid for Bosclair to be singling out minorities.

#3

[quote=“Dr Zoidberg”]Mr. Bosclaire defended his racial slur with another: It’s only racist if you say it in English :loco:

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This is an attitude I often encountered when I was studying in Quebec (at French immersion schools for anglos). Only anglos were racist; the Quebecois certainly were not racists - they were the victims of racism.

#4

They were, but victims are often especially nasty when their turn comes around.

Shylock: “The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”

#5

[quote=“Dr Zoidberg”]Mr. Bosclaire defended his racial slur with another: It’s only racist if you say it in English :loco:

[/quote]
maybe he’s not entirely wrong…I can’t speak for the french to english translation but in my mother tongue the word for Asian people literally translates into ‘little eyes’. OK I admit it sounds really crude in English but in my language it doesn’t carry any negative meanings at all. it’s the only word there is.

(useless tidbit - our word for president is ‘big head’…)

#6

But the French language has a word to describe someone from Asia: Asiatique. So Bosclair could easily have said “Asian” instead of “slant eyes”.

#7

[quote=“sleep depraved”][quote=“Dr Zoidberg”]Mr. Bosclaire defended his racial slur with another: It’s only racist if you say it in English :loco:

[/quote]
maybe he’s not entirely wrong…I can’t speak for the french to english translation but in my mother tongue the word for Asian people literally translates into ‘little eyes’. OK I admit it sounds really crude in English but in my language it doesn’t carry any negative meanings at all. it’s the only word there is.

(useless tidbit - our word for president is ‘big head’…)
[/quote]
What language is that?

#8

[quote=“Dr Zoidberg”][quote=“The National Post”]"The reality is these countries are not just working to create jobs in sweatshops,” he said Wednesday to students in Trois Rivières. “When I was in Boston, where I spent a year, I was surprised to see that on campus about one-third of the students doing their bachelor’s degrees had slanting eyes.”

[/quote]

Andre Bosclaire made the comment during a speech on education, warning Quebeckers of the perils of too many Asian students. Far from apologizing to the Asian community, Mr. Bosclaire defended his racial slur with another: It’s only racist if you say it in English :loco:

[/quote]
He’s wrong. Using the term “brinde” to describe eyes is not racist, it’s just a fact, for example when you are describing someone. But to use the term “les yeux brindes” to refer to a group of people IS racist; if he wanted to seriously talk about Asian students in America, or students whose ethnic origin is Asian, he would have done so in neutral terms.
It sounds more racist in English simply because English-speakers in Canada and America have been trained to be more politically correct than French speakers in Quebec. Racist or derogatory language is more common in Quebec (in French newespapers and magazines - it’s hard to tell whether it is in speech) than it is in English-speaking Canada. But that doesn’t mean the term itself and how he used it isn’t racist.

#9

Hmm. I’m unclear on the linguistic issues going on here. But I can think of many terms in English that, if translated literally into other languages, would not neccesarily be considered racist terms.

For example: ‘frog’ is a disciminatory term for french people in English, but does it necessarily carry the same implications in all other languages, or does it just refer to the animal in, say, Fujianese?

And as I learned from Vice magazine, some Anglophones in quebec refer to Francophones as “Pepsis” — because back in the day, Pepsi was a penny cheaper than Coke cuz it was a weaker brand (and its currently cheaper in Taiwan too). The term implied that Francophones were “cheap.” But if you called some Francophone in any other part of the world a “Pepsi”, would they know what the hell you were talking about? I doubt it…

#10

I see, he could’ve used the proper word instead of ‘slant eyes’…but it’s also true what he said about some things being interpreted as racist when they’re translated into another language/culture. maybe that doesn’t apply in his case tho since he seems to have some unsavoury opinions about minorities :s

#11

I see, he could’ve used the proper word instead of ‘slant eyes’…but it’s also true what he said about some things being interpreted as racist when they’re translated into another language/culture. maybe that doesn’t apply in his case tho since he seems to have some unsavoury opinions about minorities :s[/quote]
Maybe it’s like a Taiwanese politician speaking Taiwanese who used the term “adoga” to refer to all white people. Maybe “adoga” is not a racist term in Taiwanese - but to use it as a general term to refer to white people in a serious discussion on the campaign trail would show a certain lack of respect and a certain level of racism, in my opinion.
It’s true that people of Asian origin have different shaped eyes than white people; to pick up on this sole characteristic and use it to refer to a whole group of people is racist, again in my opinion.
It partly depends on the context of the remarks, and evidently he thought that the large numbers of students of Asian origin he saw at Harvard were all foreigners, just studying there and planning to go back to their own countries once they graduated. I’m sure that many if not most of them were actually American citizens. This too is racist.

#12

Exactly!