Is Quebec Racist?

 

Yves-Francois Blanchet has shrewdly exploited his wedge issue from the recent English-language debate: the charge that Quebec is discriminatory because of its support for Bill 21. 

To be clear, Blanchet is right, and the charge of discrimination is itself reckless and prejudiced. I find myself cheering him on, because there is a wider issue here: the growing misuse of the term “racism” to describe anything you disagree with. 

Also to be clear, the moderator did not use the term “racist.” She said “discriminatory.” I think the term “racist” came from Annamie Paul; but it is the term now being used to refer to the exchange.

Quebec’s Bill 21 prohibits public servants, including teachers, police officers, and judges, from wearing any visible religious symbols while on duty.

It is obviously not racist. It addresses religion, not race. What one thinks—one’s religion—is not decided by one’s race. To suggest so is deeply racist. 

Nor is it discriminatory towards any one religion. The law applies equally to all.

Presumably the argument is that it is discriminatory based on “disparate impact”: Sikhs or Muslims wear clothing suggesting their religious beliefs; Christians do not. So it excludes Sikhs, and not Christians, from the public service.

This argument is historically ignorant. The idea of laicization, of no religious symbols in the public service, dates back to the 19th century in France. Before then, Christians did wear clothing suggesting their religious beliefs. Franciscan friars would go about in sandals and brown robes; cardinals would wear red robes; Jesuits wore black. And these members of religious fraternities were the core of the “clerisy,” the class that ran the civil service. Christians were then compelled to stop advertising their religion when acting on behalf of the state, to emphasize the separation between the two. Christians have adjusted. Like many Catholics, I wear a scapular hidden under my collar. It is meant to represent a monk’s robes. To be discrete, it has been reduced to a small square of rough cloth that nobody can see.

Jews have similarly adapted. Required to cover their heads, they wear ordinary hats, like Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan do; or tiny yarmulkes in their hair colour. Or just drop the practice.

The law is only requiring the same of other religions.

One might argue that the law is discriminatory towards religion in general. I sympathize with that argument. To banish religion from the public square is to discriminate against the religious. Blanchet’s own comments betray a prejudice against religion. He said “religion has never advanced human equality,” or something to that effect.

By all means, let’s have that discussion.