Our poem today pays homage to contributors Frank Baarda, our Dispatcher from the Front, and to Lionel G. Fogarty, the extraordinary Australian First Nation poet, as people who know that language matters. The poem, written by Michèle Lalonde, is ‘Speak White!’. It is posted here first in its original form, mainly French, and secondly as an English translation. We urge you to read it in it’s French form first, to take time, to let the words play and perhaps stimulate the memory of that first and second form french we all ‘endured’. (Note that I got 17/100 for Intermediate French in 1962, and still manage to find meaning in this poem.)
Canadian Robert Lepage presented his autobiographical play ‘887’ at this year’s Melbourne festival. I have not seen a more flawless performance in theatre. The fulcrum of this piece was the poem ‘Speak White!’. Wikipedia (that site deserving the support of all democrats – note the lower case ‘d’) has this to say:
Speak White is a racist insult used by English-speaking Canadians against those who speak other languages in public.[1] The slur inspired a French language poem composed by Québécois writer Michèle Lalonde in 1968. It was first recited in 1970 and was published in 1974 by Editions de l’Hexagone, Montreal. It denounced the poor situation of French-speakers in Quebec and takes the tone of a collective complaint against English-speaking Quebecers.[2][3] Her poem is directed primarily at English Canada, although often citing British and American references such as Shakespeare, Keats, the Thames, the Potomac and Wall Street as its symbols of linguistic oppression.
In 1980, Speak White was made into a short motion picture by filmmakers Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin, the six-minute film featured actress Marie Eykel reading Lalonde’s poem. It was released by the National Film Board of Canada.
Italian-Quebecer journalist playwright Marco Micone also wrote a poem in response called Speak What?, depicting allophone immigrants as the same oppressed class as the Québécois in Quebec, and calling for a more inclusive society.[4] The poem Speak White was spoken in full by Robert Lepage in his one-man play “887” which premiered in Vancouver in 2015, and was also performed in August 2015 at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival in Scotland.
Speak white!
Il est si beau de vous entendre
Parler de Paradise Lost
Ou du profil gracieux et anonyme qui tremble dans les sonnets de Shakespeare
Nous sommes un peuple inculte et bègue
Mais ne sommes pas sourds au génie d’une langue
Parlez avec l’accent de Milton et Byron et Shelley et Keats
Speak white!
Et pardonnez-nous de n’avoir pour réponse
Que les chants rauques de nos ancêtres
Et le chagrin de Nelligan
Speak white!
Parlez de choses et d’autres
Parlez-nous de la Grande Charte
Ou du monument à Lincoln
Du charme gris de la Tamise
De l’eau rose du Potomac
Parlez-nous de vos traditions
Nous sommes un peuple peu brillant
Mais fort capable d’apprécier
Toute l’importance des crumpets
Ou du Boston Tea Party
Mais quand vous really speak white
Quand vous get down to brass tacks
Pour parler du gracious living
Et parler du standard de vie
Et de la Grande Société
Un peu plus fort alors speak white
Haussez vos voix de contremaîtres
Nous sommes un peu durs d’oreille
Nous vivons trop près des machines
Et n’entendons que notre souffle au-dessus des outils
Speak white and loud!
Qu’on vous entende
De Saint-Henri à Saint-Domingue
Oui quelle admirable langue
Pour embaucher
Donner des ordres
Fixer l’heure de la mort à l’ouvrage
Et de la pause qui rafraîchit
Et ravigote le dollar
Speak white!
Tell us that God is a great big shot
And that we’re paid to trust him
Speak white!
Parlez-nous production, profits et pourcentages
Speak white!
C’est une langue riche
Pour acheter
Mais pour se vendre
Mais pour se vendre à perte d’âme
Mais pour se vendre
Ah! Speak white!
Big deal
Mais pour vous dire
L’éternité d’un jour de grève
Pour raconter
Une vie de peuple-concierge
Mais pour rentrer chez nous le soir
A l’heure où le soleil s’en vient crever au-dessus des ruelles
Mais pour vous dire oui que le soleil se couche oui
Chaque jour de nos vies à l’est de vos empires
Rien ne vaut une langue à jurons
Notre parlure pas très propre
Tachée de cambouis et d’huile
Speak white!
Soyez à l’aise dans vos mots
Nous sommes un peuple rancunier
Mais ne reprochons à personne
D’avoir le monopole
De la correction de langage
Dans la langue douce de Shakespeare
Avec l’accent de Longfellow
Parlez un français pur et atrocement blanc
Comme au Viêt-Nam au Congo
Parlez un allemand impeccable
Une étoile jaune entre les dents
Parlez russe, parlez rappel à l’ordre, parlez répression
Speak white!
C’est une langue universelle
Nous sommes nés pour la comprendre
Avec ses mots lacrymogènes
Avec ses mots matraques
Speak white!
Tell us again about Freedom and Democracy
Nous savons que liberté est un mot noir
Comme la misère est nègre
Et comme le sang se mêle à la poussière des rues d’Alger ou de Little Rock
Speak white!
De Westminster à Washington, relayez-vous!
Speak white comme à Wall Street
White comme à Watts
Be civilized
Et comprenez notre parler de circonstance
Quand vous nous demandez poliment
How do you do?
Et nous entendez vous répondre
We’re doing all right
We’re doing fine
We are not alone
Nous savons que nous ne sommes pas seuls
Speak White
Michèle Lalonde, 1970,
and now the translation:
Speak white
It sounds so good when you
Speak of Paradise Lost
And of the gracious and anonymous profile that trembles
In Shakespeare’s sonnets
We’re an uncultured stammering race
But we are not deaf to the genius of a language
Speak with the accent of Milton and Byron and Shelley and Keats
Speak white
And forgive us our only answer
Being the raucous songs of our ancestors
And the sorrows of Nelligan
Speak white
Talk about this and that
Tell us about Magna Carta
Or the Lincoln Memorial
The grey charm of the Thames
The pink waters of the Potomac
Tell us about your traditions
As a people we don’t really shine
But we’re quite capable of appreciating
All the significance of crumpets
Or the Boston Tea Party
But when you really speak white
When you get down to brass tacks
To talk about gracious living
And speak of standing in life
And the Great Society
A bit stronger then, speak white
Raise your foremen’s voices
We’re a bit hard of hearing
We live too close to the machines
And we only hear the sound of our breathing over the tools.
What an admirable tongue
For hiring
Giving orders
Setting the time for working yourself to death
And for the pause that refreshes
And invigorates the dollar
Speak white
Tell us that God is a great big shot
And that we’re paid to trust him
Speak white
Talk to us about production profits and percentages
Speak white
It’s a rich langauge
For buying
But for selling
But for selling your soul
But for selling out
Ah!
Speak white
Big deal
But to tell you about
The eternity of a day on strike
To tell the story of
How a race of servants live
But for us to come home at night
At the time that the sun snuffs itself out over the backstreets
But to tell you yes that the sun is setting yes
Every day of our lives to the east of your empires
There’s nothing to match a language of swearwords
Our none-too-clean parlure
Greasy and oil-stained.
Speak white
Be easy in your words
We’re a race that holds grudges
But let’s not criticize anyone
For having a monopoly
On correcting language
In Shakespeare’s soft tongue
With the accent of Longfellow
Speak a pure and atrociously white French
Like in Vietnam, like in the Congo
Speak impeccable German
A yellow star between your teeth
Speak Russian speak call to order speak repression
Speak white
It is a universal language
We were born to understand it
With its teargas words
With its nightstick words
Speak white
Tell us again about Freedom and Democracy
We know that liberty is a black word
Just as poverty is black
And just as blood mixes with dust in the steets of Algiers
And Little Rock
Speak white
From Westminster to Washington take it in turn
Speak white like they do on Wall Street
White like they do in Watts
Be civilized
And understand us when we speak of circumstances
When you ask us politely
How do you do
And we hear you say
We’re doing all right
We’re doing fine
We
Are not alone
We know
That we are not alone
Michèle Lalonde, 1970, translated Albert Herring, 2001