In officially colorblind France, blacks have a dream - and now a lobby
By Susan Sachs | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
PARIS – Patrick Lozès has a dream: One day France's black citizens will enjoy the equality granted them under law.
"To be black and proud - that's not being anti-French," says Mr. Lozès, whose vision challenges France's colorblind model of assimilation. "It's simply theliberation of a people who don't see themselves reflected in their country's public life - in its theater, television, medicine, and universities - except in negative images."
It is not an accident that Mr. Lozès's words often contain echoes of Martin Luther King Jr. and other luminaries of the American civil rights movement. The African- American struggle for racial equality has been his prototype for France's first national black lobbying organization.
His group, called the Representative Council of Black Organizations (Le Conseil Représentative des Associations Noires, or CRAN), was founded in late 2005, just after widespread rioting in the suburban ghettos populated largely by the families of African and Arab immigrants.
The riots were not the motivation for creating CRAN, according to Mr. Lozès. But they gave the group immediacy, momentum, and a high public profile.
Its leaders have spent the past months holding conferences, setting up committees, and building a grass-roots network across the country through the more than 130 local black civic associations that make up its membership. The group has also regularly protested - against a television host who insulted Africans, against the way one French dictionary defined colonialism, and against laws prohibiting the collection of racial and ethnic statistics.
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I had just read an article a
I had just read an article a couple of hours ago on the issue of racism in France and how the country has traditionally approached and defined the meaning of race. The approach to "color-blindness" is somewhat similar to our own approach of describing our diversity in terms of being post-racial.      Â
Yeah...Given France's
Yeah...
Given France's history of welcoming Black American ex-patriots, it kind of bothers me.
That thought occured to me
That thought occured to me also.... France is no longer a racial Eden.... if it ever was
France was never Eden. But
France was never Eden. But up until WW II they simply didn't divide humans up the way the USofA did. The USofA actually complained to France about the way they failed to segregate and suppress Black soldiers and due to circumstance France complied.
P6.... Why do you think
P6.... Why do you think Paris provided such a fertile ground for black American ex-patriots to express themselves intellectually and artistically? Did France's "color-blind" value system help or hinder these endeavors? Â
France SAW Black soldiers
France SAW Black soldiers fight on their behalf and appreciated it. Nationalism rather than racism gave France its cohesion. And there were no mechanisms designed specifically to hold them down...which is the only way to keep Black folks unequal.
And yet, would you say this
And yet, would you say this same nationalism has not worked to keep France cohesive as race becomes intertwined with economics and politics? Â
Interesting question...not
Interesting question...not one I've considered at all. My first thought is that I'm not sure it's the same nationalism.
I am not a close scholar of
I am not a close scholar of French history, but it is probably true that French nationalism underwent some important changes during and following World War II. Nazi occupation and the loss of a colonial empire must have certainly produced some changes in the French psyche.       Â
Definitely. Part of that
Definitely. Part of that reshaping would be due to the requirements they'd have to meet to work with Americans...they were actually ordered not to treat Black Americans as the equals of white Americans during WW II. The text of that order is in Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing.
How do you think the Vietnam
How do you think the Vietnam and Algerian Wars affected the French psyche?Â
Okay, I'm not straying too
Okay, I'm not straying too far from my Black partisan topics...