Culture, Not Color
Spencer P. Boyer clarifies the rift in France:
The images of black and brown youth rioting around Paris seem to have convinced many that France has a race problem. We Americans might even be tempted to congratulate ourselves that we're ahead of France and other European countries, which are only now starting to grapple with racism.
But I am a young black male who has lived in both France and United States, and I can tell you that France's problem isn't about race. In a way it's a more insidious problem than that, and I worry that events in France may actually be a sign of what could happen in America.
I had my first interaction with the French police on a December night in 1991. I had recently moved to Paris, and was strolling back to my tiny apartment in an exclusive neighborhood. I probably looked scruffy in my old army jacket and jeans. Suddenly two unmarked police cars pulled up. Four officers climbed out, asked where I was going, and demanded to see my "papers." But when I began speaking French, one of the officers heard my accent. "Oh, you're American? Please excuse us. Have a great evening."
I was stunned. Americans had warned me that the French didn't welcome people of color and constantly harassed Arabs and Africans. But I soon learned that being an African American in France is wonderful. I was generally treated better than I would have been back in the States.
I was treated well elsewhere in Europe, too. Off and on, I spent five years on the Continent, first as a student and then as a lawyer, in France, England, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Seldom did I encounter prejudice. Usually I was made to feel special.
I worried that after the Sept. 11 attacks, and America's response, the goodwill that Europeans showered on me would diminish, as anti-American sentiments in Europe grew. My white American friends in Europe tried to hide their nationality. But I was given a free pass. For the most part, Europeans exempted me from their stereotype of America as the arrogant and ignorant bully on the world stage. In other words, I was treated even better than my fellow whites - because I was black.
All of this seems puzzling, especially in light of all the recent talk about racism in France. Yet at the end of World War I, black American regiments that were disdained in their own country were cheered when they paraded down the Champs-Elysées in Paris. In World War II, too, the French embraced black soldiers from the States.
Throughout the 20th century, legions of black American artists, writers, and jazz musicians escaped racism at home by fleeing to Europe. Paris, in particular, has been a second home for black intellectuals such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin.
I have inherited that legacy. Europeans associate me with the aspects of America they embrace, especially African American art and music, and the historical struggle for freedom and civil rights - exotic, but not threatening. It never seemed to matter that I personally was not artsy or hip. I was "ethnic," but I wasn't an immigrant with a culture and customs that were so different as to be feared. I was Christian, not Muslim. Different, but not too different.
And this, in my experience, is why prejudice in Europe is such a dramatically different beast from prejudice in the United States. In America, prejudice has long been a question of color. In Europe, it's not about color, it's about culture. France doesn't have a race problem. It has a problem embracing the culture and customs of its immigrants and their children.
"France doesn't have a race problem. It has a problem embracing the culture and customs of its immigrants and their children."
Gee. Just last Friday, the Augusta, GA area was treated to assorted babbling that the prosecution of a high-school athlete for child molestation and sexual assault was because "the white people in this area don't understand the black situation".
Somehow, rape isn't rape if the perpetrator is black.
I certainly hope these people actually don't know what they are saying.
Radwaste at December 13, 2005 7:35 PM
Nice try, but no sale. Of course Mr. Boyer was treated well in France. The French reserve their racism for their immigrant third world muslim population, not African Americans. They treat African Americans quite well because it satisfies their sense of moral superiority over America. They still think that race relations in the U.S. are stuck in the 1960's.
And don't even get me started on their anti-semitism.
nash at December 13, 2005 9:21 PM
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