BlacKosity Magazine

Michaelle Jean, Canada ’s first black Governor General and  President Barack Obama, the US’s first black President .

(Black is sooo beautiful ya’ll!)

The Governor General of Canada is the vice-regal, or viceroy representative in Canada, of the Queen of Canada , who is the head of state. A viceroy is a royal official who governs the country in the name of and as representative of the monarch.

Canada is one of sixteen British Commonwealth realms, all of which share the British monarch as their royal leader. The monarch appoints the Governor General on the advice of the Canadian Prime Minister, who is the Canadian Head of Government, after which the Governor General maintains direct contact with the British monarch. There is no specific term.

Michaëlle Jean (born September 6, 1957, in Port-au-Prince , Haiti ) is the current Governor General of Canada . Jean was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of Prime Minister Paul Martin, to succeed Adrienne Clarkson and become the 27th Governor General of Canada since Confederation in 1867. Prior to this, Jean was a journalist and broadcaster on Radio-Canada and the CBC.

As the current Governor General of Canada , she is entitled to be styled Her Excellency while in office, and The Right Honourable for life; given current practice, she will be sworn in to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada after her term as the Queen’s representative has ended.

Jean fled Haiti with her family from dictator François Duvalier’s regime in 1968. Her father, from whom she was estranged for many years, was a philosopher who was tortured under Duvalier’s regime and separated from the family for 30 years. The Jean family settled at Thetford Mines , Quebec .

As a student at the University of Montreal , Jean received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Italian and Hispanic languages and literature and, from 1984 until 1986, taught Italian studies while completing a Master of Arts degree in comparative literature. Jean attended the University of Florence , the University of Perugia , and the Catholic University of Milan to continue her studies in language and literature. Besides French and English, Jean is fluent in Spanish, Italian, and Haitian Creole and can read Portuguese.