by SCOTT C

One night back in October of 2003, I was poking around at the dep across the street from my girlfriend's house, as usual. I can't remember whether I bought chips or beer, but I do remember seeing the Journal de Montréal out of the corner of my eye while waiting for my change.

"Sept jours dans la peau d'un noir," was what the headline read, accompanied by what seemed to be the photo of a white man in black makeup. Instantly amazed, I waived my change and investigated the story further.

Journalist Stéphane Alarie, a 12-year veteran of the Journal de Montréal, had undergone hours of makeup to disguise himself as a black man in an effort to probe the streets of Montreal for the existence of racism, much like American author John Howard Griffin had done years before, crossing the colour lines of the racially charged Deep South of the 1950s in his book Black Like Me. I couldn't believe it. A white guy was donning some sort of high-tech blackface to tackle racism? And it was on the cover of the newspaper in Montreal?

Alarie systematically went through a series of exercises, such as job hunting, trying to get taxis, hanging out at bars and hocking merchandise at the pawnshop. He did this as a white man, and then in makeup as a black man, and documented the whole thing in a diary-style serial in the Journal.

After a little digging around, I was able to get my hands on the entire series, as well as several additional interviews with Alarie, who was swamped by media interest in his exploratory experiment. I listened painfully to Alarie as he was interviewed on CBC radio's C'est la vie by Bernard St-Laurent, where he was somehow worked into a program that focused on the Haitian experience in Montreal, and the preservation of Creole. It was listening to him being asked a series of limp questions - "What was it like? What did you learn?" - that eventually drove me to write this story, where hopefully I can answer the million-dollar question: why does this make me feel uncomfortable as a black man in 2004?

Those of you familiar with my work know that I am far from an academic, but since I was all fired up with nowhere to go, I quickly convinced myself that this sort of stunt was clearly counterproductive and couldn't really address the issues it was trying to raise. Or could it? I tried to picture myself going undercover, unnoticed by the white majority, learning everything I could about what it's like to be white on a daily basis. And I realized the ridiculousness of it all.

As a visible minority already mixed in with the vast white majority, I know the importance of self-awareness and respect for difference. It's a little complicated, and not to be approached in a spit-and-polish manner. So I felt one way to get to the heart of the matter would be to interview the man myself…

Mirror: Have you read Griffin's Black Like Me?

Stéphane Alarie: I read it after we got the idea. The book didn't inspire me to do this, but it probably inspired me more in the way that I wrote it.

M: Who would you say you did this for? White people? Black people?

SA: I didn't do it for any group in particular. I think it was more interesting to see what the situation was, and if racism was still easy to find. Before being changed into a black, I did research, met people from the black community, researchers from universities and groups that aim to defend victims of racism. They told me about situations in which I might encounter racism.

M: How did black people react to you?

SA: While I was black?

M: While you were in makeup, and after the story had run.

SA: Most of them reacted very well. A lot of people wanted to know why we had not used a black journalist. When I would explain that the goal was to compare doing things as a black and then as a white with the only difference being the colour of my skin, then they understood and appreciated it. Ninety per cent of black people I talked to could appreciate what I was doing.

M: Wouldn't it have been more credible and realistic if you had used both black and white journalists?

SA: No. I'm 5-foot 6-inches, and the black journalist we have here is 6-foot, 200 pounds…

M: I'm saying, assuming you have two reporters of similar stature, or not even. Just as long as one is black and one is white.

SA: It could have been valuable to do it like that, maybe, but the aim here was for the same person in the same situation, with only different coloured skin to perceive how people treated me. Someone asked if a black journalist could have done the same story, and I said yes, but only if he was made up as a white person.

M: Why not simply talk to black people about their experiences without makeup? Why did you have to do your story like this instead of hearing people's stories from a first-hand point of view?

SA: That has been done often, and it has value as well, sure. I put a lot of myself into the writing. How I felt, what I saw, and that's not common for a journalist. It was hard for me to write the story this way because I'm used to writing news stories with the facts, not the feelings or the perception I have. There are parts where I tell what I feel and what I'm thinking, and other parts where I interview a specialist on racial issues.

Lessons learned?

M: What did you learn?

SA: The vast majority of people are tolerant, and don't mind what colour of skin you have. In some situations, racism is so flagrant it's amazing. I think that the differences make people afraid.

M: Did you ever consider that this type of exercise might contribute to this fear?

SA: No. This is a snapshot, a Polaroid. After seven days as a black person, I don't pretend to know what it means to be black. The story has been out four or five months now and this is the 25th or 26th interview that I've done. I like the impact it's had. Do I think it will change a lot of things? No. But I think it will make people aware that there's still thought to be given to these situations.

M: La Ligue des Noirs du Québec, the Centre for Ethnic Studies, the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations - why do think these groups that you've referred to have never done something like this before in their research?

SA: I know the Régie du logement did some research about 10 years ago where they didn't use makeup, but they sent a black family and then a white family to see about the same apartment. Just the makeup would have been too expensive. My makeup cost thousands of dollars. I had to have the makeup artist with me at all times. It's also very, very time-consuming, and I think that's why it's not used more often.

M: If I dressed up as a white person in the same fashion, in the hope of discovering some hidden truths about white people, would you take me seriously?

SA: Sure. I can't say it would be valuable, but it would be worth a try. One of the criticisms I had from white people was that blacks also treat whites badly, and there are places that whites are not welcome.

SA: After you were asked to leave the bar in Longueuil - with you in makeup, accompanying your black friend Mr. Diallo - did you feel you could identify with him a lot more?

M: Myself, I was not insulted. I'm not black, so I couldn't feel personally attacked. I was there with my journalist antenna, trying to sense what was happening. But I could feel that Mr. Diallo was shocked by the situation.

M: Some might say that what you've done is an insensitive and short-sighted racist approach in itself, even with your good intentions and your sentiment. Can you see that?

SA: Like I told you, nobody accused me of that so far. I don't know what could be a racist bias on what I've done.

M: Some might find it offensive that a white journalist is going undercover as a black man as a news exercise in 2004.

SA: What people?

M: Black people.

SA: Like I said, 90 per cent of the blacks that called and e-mailed said thanks for showing what we live everyday. I was asked to write the preface for a book by an African political scientist. I was invited to Ottawa in March for the week on racism. I don't think many black people feel like you're suggesting. I'm not a minority, but if I were, I would do anything to stop the racism that goes on in everyday life. What I did doesn't worsen things.

M: Well, you certainly raised some discussion.

Slipping into reverse

Alarie seemed like a nice enough guy. He told me how his elderly mother wouldn't kiss him while he was in blackface, and how he had to explain to his daughter what racism was - hopefully while not in blackface. And he's right. Racism is still alive and well in the streets of our city, despite the fact that it's 2004 and we've come so far in terms of race relations, justice and equality.

Or have we? My first and only thought in all of this was, if you're talking about black people, black feelings, black issues and black life, wouldn't it be job one to include the people in question? In his skewed attempt to talk racism in this city, Alarie has blindly slipped into reverse, silencing the very people he aims to vindicate. Even a hack like me can recognize the blatant denial of black voices throughout history, a thought that makes me think of my own job with a strange new humility.

I called up George Elliot Clarke, a black Canadian poet, playwright, critic, cultural thinker and currently a professor of English literature at the University of Toronto. This Governor-General-award-winning writer had already caught wind of Alarie's blackface escapades by the time I talked to him.

"Of course one of the things that immediately comes to mind is the image of the old-fashioned minstrel," says Clarke. "I don't want to go too far into that, as I assume that this journalist had good intentions. By that I mean he wanted to show his white brothers and sisters just how racist they really are."

Most of us are familiar with the U.S. version of a white man in blackface imitating black music and dance, and I don't have to tell you that this crude parody was widely accepted by whites for decades as an accurate depiction of what black folk were really like, greatly contributing to years of a simplified, and ultimately silenced, black identity. "In our society," says Clarke matter-of-factly, "black reality is not palatable coming from blacks, but the white person who takes on the black voice, or wants to explore black reality, is celebrated as being daring, courageous, liberal and humanistic." That sounds about right to me, at least in this situation. There's no way a man with a thousand dollars worth of shoe polish on his face could really grapple with this stuff.

Screaming history

Continues Clarke: "Racism in Quebec is still situated within the rivalry between nationalists and federalists, and the argument over who is more tolerant than the other. Every once in a while, the CBC or some news agency - or, for that matter, the Quebec government - has tried to articulate and demonstrate how racist, or non-racist, purelaine Quebecois are."

This would point to how someone might find it necessary to undertake the stunt in the Journal de Montréal, given the fact that, according to Clarke, people are allowed to go on fantasizing that it's only the Americans that do these kinds of things. Apparently that's not the case, but at any rate, what happens to the issue? Does it get lost and forgotten in the spectacle of it all?

"Black people and people of colour are forced into having to tell their history - scream their history - and continue to answer and talk back to 'the official organs of communication' that are pumping out propaganda about 'Canada - land of tolerance,' 'Canada - land of no segregation,' and 'Canada - land of no racism.'

I guess Alarie's assumption that with a little bit of makeup, an afro wig and a Fubu shirt he could somehow represent my interests or my point of view got me a little vexed, but considering he couldn't even see the irony of all this, maybe there's something else to be learned here.

"I can agree and say, yes, this is offensive," says Clarke. "Doing this kind of reportage and coming back saying, 'Gee whiz, there is racism,' and then passing it off as news is upsetting. Why is it news? Because he's white. Just like when John Howard Griffin went to the Deep South in the '50s. Black people had been talking and complaining about racism since before slavery, and it really didn't get a lot of attention. All those civil rights marchers, sit-downs and sit-ins, people who were falsely charged, jailed, beaten, shot, executed, assassinated and lynched - didn't their black bodies testify to the racism in the south? All of it doesn't matter, because it was Griffin's book that propelled the civil rights movement forward. Black Like Me helped people in Middle America know that the civil rights movement was justified and necessary." Believe it or not.

Questions raised, voices denied

I bet there are whites, blacks and other minorities in this city who would find absolutely nothing wrong with the actions of Mr. Alarie for one reason or another. It's just impossible to generalize with these kinds of things, and I'm just glad we could at least table a complex issue that isn't going away anytime soon. No one says it better than George Elliot Clarke.

"Canada is a country that likes to deny its racism, always pointing to the U.S., because Canadians are good people. White Canadians are good people who've never done a racist thing in their history. But to claim to be non-racist while actively practicing racism? On one level, that's a very important intervention, but on the other hand, it still denies voice to the people who experience living it every day, who aren't going to whiten their skin like Michael Jackson. Their reality is left unheard."