My Take: By Matthew Mccully

The Festival des Traditions du Monde is one of my favourite events in Sherbrooke. The music, the food, the energy. But I can’t help wondering how this plethora of diverse cultures could be so willing and open to share customs and traditions with privileged Quebecers for a weekend, only to go back to facing the daily barriers of systemic racism and discrimination for the rest of the year.

Maybe it’s my white guilt talking. The festival is, after all, an opportunity to educate.

But with Quebec’s secularism and immigration policies as they are, and new research demonstrating that religious minorities don’t feel welcome here, I find it hard to stomach celebrating diversity in small, controlled doses. And I feel complicit in the oppression inflicted upon minorities in this province with my silence.

I guess I wish every day were a Festival des Traditions du Monde.