Will They Ever Speak with Authority? Race, post‐coloniality and the symbolic violence of language

Abstract

Intersecting authority‐language‐and‐symbolic power, this article tells the story of a group of continental Francophone African youth who find themselves in an urban French‐language high school in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Through their narrative, one is confronted by the trauma of one's own language being declared an illegitimate child, hence becoming a ‘deceptive fluency’ in the ‘eyes of power’ thanks to race and post‐coloniality. They are fully consciousness of this situation and their ‘linguistic return’, thus gazing back at the eyes of power and declaring themselves ‘subjects’ capable of love and desire. I briefly address questions of hospitality and language ownership and conclude by addressing the need to re‐think the connection between race, power and language.

Keywords:

• race
• post‐coloniality
• language
• authority
• symbolic violence