It's not easy to talk about racism in Quebec. Just ask Haroun Bouazzi

It's been a noisy week in Quebec politics.

Even Thursday's update on the province's economy couldn't completely drown out the cacophony from the last two weeks about who's racist and who isn't.

Lost in this controversy surrounding Haroun Bouazzi's comments is how it highlights the challenges of talking about racism, especially in Quebec.

Bouazzi, a Montreal MNA with the left-wing party Québec Solidaire, triggered what he himself described as a "media-political whirlwind" with a speech he delivered earlier this month at an event organized by Fondation Club Avenir, a community group that works with immigrants of Maghrebi origin in Montreal.

During the speech, Bouazzi talked about racism and alluded to race being a social construct: one that assigns characteristics to a category of people that paint them as either the superior or inferior group.

"There are races that are constructed by society, which create a category to which we assign a culture that is, by definition, dangerous and inferior," Bouazzi said, before moving on to the part of his speech that would put a giant target on his and his party's backs. 

"God knows I see this in the National Assembly every day, the construction of this other, this other who is Maghrebi, who is Muslim, who is Black, who is Indigenous."

Bouazzi was criticized from all sides, including the leadership in his own party, which described his comments as clumsy, exaggerated and polarizing. 

"It's not just a few columnists, Mr. Bouazzi, everyone is against you," Radio-Canada Tout un matin host Patrick Masbourian told the MNA during a testy interview last Friday. 

Beyond the finger pointing, calls for sanctions and symbolic motions passed at the National Assembly denouncing Bouazzi's speech, our provincial politicians' longstanding struggle — or unwillingness — to approach the topic of racism with any sort of nuance was on full display.

The "construction of this other" Bouazzi alluded to in a speech he delivered in French essentially translates to English as "othering."

Othering is a well-known concept in sociology. 

The definitions for othering can vary, but it is generally based on the categorization of a group of people based on perceived differences like skin colour, religion or sexual orientation, and identifying that group as inferior and adopting an "us versus them" mentality.

Experts say it can lead to social isolation, discrimination and even the dehumanization of certain groups.