CREOLE CULTURAL NEWS FLASH: Are Creoles ALL Black ? Judging from the racially one-sided face of Vermilionvilles representation of Creoles for its annual CREOLE DAY one might believe Lafayettes four decade long racial stereotyping of Creole as black and Cajun as white. KATC TV 3 continues to slant Creole as if it were a surrogate for black people exclusively, notwithstanding written communication sent to them seeking to enlighten them to a more historically-based reality. In their reporting of Creole Day they rarely feature non-black people in the evening news, thus inadvertently, if not deliberately reinforcing this ignorance and racial stereotype. Blaming Dr. David Cheramie (CEO Vermilionville) for not providing any information to the contrary, the administration of Vermilionville, in its turn, blames the media, alleging that they always take liberties to write it as they see it... I dont buy it. And, although I have been asked to participate, I have noticed my conspicuous ABSENCE from publicity in past participations, which consistently features my black allies, although I am perhaps the most vocal multi-ethnic Louisiana Creole proponent and and writer known in the upper northwest French-speaking triangle! Hmmm. Could it be that, in spite of the apologies, the politics of Lafayette continue to promote (and dictate) the four-decade long MYTH and RACIAL STEREOTYPING and policies which cast blacks and whites as EITHER OR...Cajun or Creole? That is the Anglo-American way of seeing people, isnt it; creating the impression of two separate cultures and peoples? Seeing this as duplicity, I can no longer participate in CREOLE DAY. But, in fact, Creole has never been limited to blacks and has never been used as a racial qualifier in Louisianas history, nor in her courthouse records, regardless of either Charles Gayarres initiative to racialize Creole and his insistence that Creole in New Orleans was a white-exclusive label-which he created, and despite Lafayettes forty-year mass-marketed racial stereotype and ignorance. What does a Creole-metis woman look like? Thats like asking what does any woman look like! The possibilities are obviously unknowable, but this is what my Creole-metis mother looked like in her 30s and in old age before death came to make its tragic transport of Marie Ardoin-laFleur, my mother. Creoles have never been ONLY black. We ARE DIVERSE. This means that we can come in ANY VARIETY and of course, color! And, at the risk of shocking the misinformed or the racially paranoid, Cajun cannot exclusively represent ONLY WHITE Acadian descendants anymore than Creole can represent black francophones-exclusively; thats logically impossible. But, then again, in a region where ugly post Reconstruction & Jim Crow politics have dictated a revision of our Colonial history beyond anything imaginable to our ancestors and to the well-educated, should we be surprised at all? John LaFleur IIs photo.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 15:45:20 +0000
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