Fear of a Black Nation

1) "In 1997 many members of Montreal’s Black community had not seen her in years, decades even, and they were surprised when they heard about my chance encounter with her. But for a brief moment between 1968 and 1969, the event that she was part of, and the city of Montreal itself, had become a centre of Black Power. Josie Wallen was part of a network of individuals and groups in the city’s small Black community, people who were fighting to define their place in Montreal and Canada. Like members of other communities in the Black diaspora, Montreal’s Blacks dreamed, fought, protested, and organized. They acted autonomously and yet were also an active part of a wider movement for change that touched the lives of others around the globe. That moment in Montreal was neither fleeting nor by chance. Rather, it was part of a larger complex of events and developments that sent ripples across Canada and through the United States, Britain, and the Caribbean."

2) "In some ways the ferment of the period was embodied in those two significant events: the Congress of Black Writers, one of the most important gatherings of international Black radical and nationalist figures of the time; and what became known as the Sir George Williams Affair, a protest and occupation that quickly assumed implications well beyond the university environment. The events mark a historical turning point that highlights many of the pressing issues of today – issues of race, gender, and security, among others. The events were also intricately connected, and while one organizer of the historic conference argued that the city of Montreal was incidental to the occasion and that the meeting could have been held elsewhere, careful consideration suggests that the site was neither accidental nor incidental. Both events captured national and international headlines as acts of Black militancy that underscored racial oppression in Canada."

3) "Various factors – the coming to power of a Liberal administration under Lesage, the declining significance of the Catholic Church’s authority, the emergence of the French Quebec new left in the post-Duplessis era – combined to profoundly shape Quebec society. Not only did French Quebecers assert an anti-colonial and nationalist position, but in doing so they also constructed a Black racial persona – the French Canadian as nègre. It was precisely during this time – when French Quebecers were casting themselves as 'white [n-words]' in Quebec’s heightened nationalist and politically charged context – that Black radical politics emerged in Montreal. As Blacks in Montreal were redefining themselves and claiming Montreal and Canada as their own – thinking locally and transnationally, and expressing new, overtly militant forms of protest and defiance – French Canadians were appropriating blackness as a kind of anagram – a rearranging of meaning as opposed to words – of their lived experience."

4) "In the Caribbean the new nationalist movements of various kinds and emerging oppositional groups presented a challenge to colonial continuity – the lingering of old forms of colonialism under new guises in newly independent states – a phenomenon that occurred both despite the efforts and, often, with the collaboration of the region’s new leadership. The shadowy states that appeared in the afterlife of formal colonialism were in effect what Richard Iton refers to as 'duppy states,' in an allusion to ghosts (duppies) in Jamaica who haunt the living because their bodies were not properly disposed of."

5) "Despite the tragedies and political and personal differences, Cook recalled that Sir George mobilized students around anti-racism and shifted the focus from U.S. to Canadian racial oppression. The event delivered a blow to the liberal image of the university and Montreal and to the confidence of the Canadian power structure. According to Cook, the Liberal government did not have an effective program or analytical tools to help its politicians and functionaries understand the incident. It struggled to make sense of what he described as a 'fear of the Black man rising in North America' or what Jones referred to as a fear of a united Black movement, a fear that became a priority for state security. Canada could no longer ignore racism because it had crashed right on its doorstep."

6) "Blacks have long had a love-hate relationship with the White left. While the left, as a broad political category, has historically been among the groups at the forefront of challenging the power elite in the global North, including the struggle against racism, it has also been the case that the White left has been indifferent to institutional racism and, worse, often guilty of the same virulence and paternalism towards Blacks that has served to prop up and support the very systems and relations of power and domination that it opposes."

7) "Over a period of time the RCMP spied on gay and lesbian groups, tea and Tupperware parties, consumer housewife groups, high-school and university students, feminists, trade unions, left-wing groups, members of conventional political parties, and politicians. Any individual or group deemed 'different' – outside the predetermined political, sexual, gender, and racial norms – was considered a potential threat to state security and, collaborating and sharing information with the FBI and CIA, the RCMP kept copious files on them. In addition to the generic new left, the French Québécois left, Maoists, Trotskyists, and communists of all stripes, the RCMP monitored Red Power and Black Power groups and was especially fearful of collaboration between the latter two groups and between Quebec nationalists, Canadian Black Power figures, and members of the Black Panther Party. Judging from the Force’s own statements, it perceived the organized Black left as being particularly subversive and threatening to Canadian national security in the 1960s."