Back on Black!?
Are we in the 21st Century? How is it possible that owners of a bar located in Longeueuil, Quebec harbour such inbelievably racist beliefs that they took steps to deny admission to their establishment to blacks? Are we back in the 1920s, the 1930s, 1940, when it was seen as perfectly legitimate to deny people of colour the same amenities the same rights to public services as whites? What on earth can possibly be the matter with some people? If an accident of fate denied them sufficient intelligence to recognize that there is but one race representing all of humankind, why do we suffer them to spread their bigotry heedlessly among us?The owners of the Resto Bar le Surf in Longueuil evidently enforced a no-entry policy for blacks within their premises. Unwitting people of colour might enter the bar but they would soon discover to their immense discomfiture that their presence was troubling to the owner and they were invited to leave. How to deal with such indignity, such an offence against human rights? What about the reactions of the other customers in the bar? Would they become aware of the situation?
As though people of colour and blacks in particular represent an inferior alien race. The morally reprehensible claims of racial bigots that people of colour can be denigrated, kept separate and apart, that the purity of the white race surpasses in quality and value that of the rights of all others is quite simply criminally unacceptable. In our unambiguously egalitarian society that some could practise their vicious hatred of visible minorities with seeming inpunity is truly frightening.
Such barbaric social hold-outs of racial hatred cannot be conveniently overlooked as a quaintly semi-acceptable aberration by by-standers. If the rank publicity garnered by the Resto Bar le Surf and its owner, Christian Lemyre does not result in the bar and its odious policies going out of business because other residents refuse to comply with and recognize the 'legitimacy' of discrimination, something remains dreadfully wrong with society.
That the employees of this nasty establishment were compliant in refusing to serve the two men, responding to their queries by saying they were black and the bar's policy barred them entry and service is unspeakable. There is some solace to be had in the fact that all of those involved in this discriminatory debacle in civility were condemned by the Quebec human rights commission, and were ordered to pay damages to Seydou Boubacar Diallo and Mamadou El Bachir Gologo, two men of Malian origin.
But we should be collectively ashamed that such a situation could occur in the Province of Quebec, in Canada.
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, July 27, 2006
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