"White Niggers of America"

[Art Vandelay]

Has anyone read this book, or come across it before? Despite its somewhat unfortunate title, I'm interested in potentially ordering it. Any other suggestions of books dealing with the Quebec national question, or related topics, would be appreciated.

[CyM]

I would strongly recommend that you read up about the common front general strike of 1972 if you're reading up about quebec history. Before this failed revolution, the nationalists did not have a base in the unions. It is the failed revolution which allowed the rise of a cross class coalition in the form of the PQ.

[blake 3:17]

It's a great book. Most people have no clue to the oppression of the Quebecois. The discrimination in employment and education was atrocious.

There's a fairly good account in Bryan Palmer's recent book on the 60s on the sovereignist movement and its radicalism.

[Glitchcraft]

I really don't like the title

[blake 3:17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Niggers_of_America

The original title was Nègres blancs d'Amérique.

Folks can debate it, but that's the name of the book and it was published before the Common Front. The Quebecois sovereignist revolutionaries were very much inspired by rebellions in the Third World and combined guerrilla and syndicalist tactics. This is a history which has largely been erased or ignored in the rest of North America.

It was funny seeing this mentioned-- we all read it in the 90s and were trying to figure it out -- cuz I just started rereading Hubert Aquin's Prochaine Episode, told from the perspective of a Quebecois revolutionary detained in a psychiatric prison. That was from 65, and they saw themselves in the same fight as the Cubans and Algerians.

[Art Vandelay]

I'm placing an order for a few different books today (got paid, might as well blow it) and this is definitely going to be one. As I said, I think the title is somewhat unfortunate, but having said that, given the fact that his analysis is class based, I think its pretty obvious the author was using it not as a term which denotes race, but rather class (ie: both African Americans and the Quebecois were forcibly brought to the new world for the purpose of exploitation).

[CyM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Niggers_of_America

The original title was Nègres blancs d'Amérique.

Folks can debate it, but that's the name of the book and it was published before the Common Front. The Quebecois sovereignist revolutionaries were very much inspired by rebellions in the Third World and combined guerrilla and syndicalist tactics. This is a history which has largely been erased or ignored in the rest of North America.

It was funny seeing this mentioned-- we all read it in the 90s and were trying to figure it out -- cuz I just started rereading Hubert Aquin's Prochaine Episode, told from the perspective of a Quebecois revolutionary detained in a psychiatric prison. That was from 65, and they saw themselves in the same fight as the Cubans and Algerians.
Yes, the national liberation movement existed before the common front, but petit-bourgeois nationalism did not gain ground amongst the working class until the common front was defeated.

Only then did the workers' unions drop the position "nationalize the commanding heights of the economy and abolish capitalism to fight American and Canadian imperialism" and replace it with straight up nationalism in unity with francophone bourgeois.