What's in a word? Especially when that word carries with it the pain of hundreds of years of racism? This week we talk about how the controversy over the public use of the N-word plays out differently in French and English in this country.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Jonathan Goldsbie
News Editor
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts
Hosted by Jesse Brown
When a CBC host used the N-word in pre-production meetings, she was taken off the air. When the French arm of the public broadcaster, Radio-Canada, had a program just months later where the N-word was used four times in both languages, the broadcaster dismissed charges that there was anything wrong with the program. That is, until the CRTC stepped in and said an apology was in order.
Why two different responses at the same company in two languages? And why does the 1968 book by Pierre Vallières always seem to be at the heart of the controversy?
I think we need to respect what the families want and not force them to do something for anybody else but their own healing and their own search for justice. -Kisha Supernant, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta
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