Rhau, one of this year’s official spokespersons for Atramentous History Month in Montreal, threw attention and a abeyant career to the wind in October 2010, aperture for Boucar Diouf at the Gesù. She took shots at media advantage of the Haitian earthquake, decidedly apropos a few U.S. TV reporters added focused on accepting their mugs on camera than in allowance the distressed.
“There may not accept been abundant to beam about, and as abundant as I was afflicted the way Anderson Cooper was everywhere, I begin it a bit camp that he was commenting on air about a woman who was trapped beneath a section of collapsed concrete, rather than aggravating to advice her get out. She was bleeding abominably and agreeable in pain, and he was answer to his admirers how abominably the convulsion had aching people,” Rhau relates.
“Then there was addition guy active by an afflicted woman with a bairn babyish in her arms. She bare help, but he kept talking into the camera. It was nuts. Humans were alleviative the convulsion like it was some live-entertainment TV show. Hello! Do something.”
Haiti is abutting to Rhau’s heart. Her parents were both built-in there, and although they came from a allotment of the country that emerged mostly unscathed, they had accompany who absent ancestors and were abominably injured.
“Before I did that routine, I approved the approval of Haitian ancestors associates and friends. They gave me the blooming ablaze and I went ahead.”
The admirers went wild, and a career was born. A additional one, that is. Rhau had spent a lot of of her alive activity in the human-resources administration of a above pharmaceuticals company, area she admits action were at a premium. But at the advancement of a acquaintance – who has aback become her administrator – Rhau, a individual mother, absitively to accord up the aegis and allowances for the ambiguity of the ball world.
“For 10 years, my acquaintance had been cogent me I was crumbling my time in pharmaceuticals, that I was meant to be a comic. So, at 37, I did just that and active up for autograph and assuming courses at L’École nationale de l’humour.
“It was a abundant challenge, abnormally for a individual mom, but I ample I had annihilation to lose, either,” Rhau says. “Funny as it may sound, I absitively to get absolutely austere about comedy. The Quebec arena is not the easiest to breach into for a woman, decidedly for arresting minorities. But I never let that stop me afore and I wasn’t about to then.”
Rhau fabricated an appulse in a appearance with Compagnie Créole at endure summer’s Zoofest basic of Just for Laughs. Now she is at plan autograph a abandoned appearance she hopes to accomplish this summer at Zoofest. The section would affection her adapt ego Mémère, her grandmother figure, and herself analogue on their aberrant apple views.
“There will be music, too. But alone dancing. I can’t sing. I’m not a absolute atramentous woman on that level,” cracks Rhau, whose ball influences ambit from Bill Cosby to Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock to Mo’Nique.
Her ambition is to ability out to francophone audiences throughout the world. She insists she won’t be abode on Quebec backroom or accent issues.
“I wish to allocution about accepted ball issues – such as why white women assume so ardent of atramentous men. I wish to deflate that image. All those fantasies white women accept – accept me, it’s no sex wonderland,” she deadpans.
“White women are way added advanced of men than atramentous women. They bandy plates if they get mad, but atramentous women will bandy the bowl with the hot goulash on top.”
In her role as spokesperson, Rhau won’t be assuming during Atramentous History Month, which begins Wednesday.
“I will try to be serious. Atramentous History Month is a attending aback to area we were, but for me, it’s a admonition that we accept to footfall it up. What happened, happened. The focus should be about how we yield our abode in today’s society.
“We all accept to be proactive, behindhand of gender, chase or culture. We accept to stop seeing colour as a barrier. We accept to stop cerebration about limitations.”
Rhau senses that Quebec today is added advanced than it was if she was younger.
“I bethink getting teased at school. Kids would appear up and alpha speaking some nonsense dialogue, assuming to be African. Now my son goes to a academy with 44 altered nationalities. It’s all so multicultural today, so no one absolutely stands out.
“I accept consistently taken the attitude that I accept to prove myself consistently no amount area I go. I will consistently try harder. It has fabricated me stronger. I wish account from people, not pity. I wish to accomplish humans laugh, not cry.”
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