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Black Montreal theatre performer files lawsuit after puppet called racist
Canadian Press ^ | 01/11/2024 | Jacob Serebrin

Posted on 01/15/2024 4:21:02 PM PST by simpson96

A Black Montreal theatre performer has filed a lawsuit against an anti-racism activist who he says falsely associated him with racism against Black people.

Franck Sylvestre agues in the suit filed at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday that Alain Babineau made unreasonable claims about a puppet in a theatre piece Sylvestre created for children, damaging his career.

Babineau “unreasonably associated the plaintiff and his puppet with racism, with the submission of Black people to white people and even white supremacism and the dehumanization of Black people,” the lawsuit reads. The criticism was an attack on Sylvestre’s reputation, it adds, and an attempt “to expose him to the hatred and contempt of the public in general and the Black community in particular.”

At a news conference last February, Babineau, the racial profiling and public safety director at civil rights group The Red Coalition, called for performances of the theatre piece to be cancelled, arguing that the puppet was an example of anti-Black racism and reminiscent of blackface minstrel shows — performances intended to mock Black people.

Sylvestre’s lawyer, Guillaume Rousseau said the puppet is based on his client’s own appearance and that there’s nothing racist about the show.(snip)

“It’s an issue of freedom of artistic expression,” Rousseau said in an interview Wednesday. “If every representation of a Black person that doesn’t please Mr. Babineau and others becomes blackface, becomes the subject of calls for censorship, that limits my client’s freedom of artistic expression and, potentially, that of other artists.”(snip)

The lawsuit, which seeks $26,600 in damages, also alleges that Sylvestre’s career as a children’s performer has been threatened because he is now unfairly seen as “controversial” and presenters won’t book him.

In a statement Wednesday, The Red Coalition maintained that the puppet’s appearance is racist and could offend people.

(Excerpt) Read more at globalnews.ca ...


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To: simpson96
...with the submission of Black people to white people...

Caps lock problem?

21 posted on 01/15/2024 9:01:45 PM PST by Libloather (Why do climate change hoax deniers live in mansions on the beach?)
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To: simpson96

HAHAHAHA liberals eating liberals. Who to cheer for.


22 posted on 01/15/2024 9:33:32 PM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eye)
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To: simpson96

“The Red Coalition”

I’d like to know what groups are part of this coalition. Communists, Maoists, Bolsheviks, Trotskyites? What?


23 posted on 01/15/2024 10:29:35 PM PST by DeplorablePaul
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