For blacks in France, Obama's rise is reason to rejoice
French "noir": The rapper Youssoupha, part of a generation in France that is rediscovering négritude.Picture: The New York Times
Saturday, June 21, 2008
WHEN Youssoupha, a black rapper here, was asked the other day what was on his mind, a grin spread across his face. "Barack Obama." he said, "Obama tells us everything is possible."
A new black consciousness is emerging in France, lately hastened by, of all things, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States. An article in Le Monde described how Obama is stirring up high hopes among blacks here. Even seeing the word "noir" (black) in a French newspaper was an occasion for surprise until recently.
Americans, who have debated race relations since the dawn of the Republic, may find it hard to grasp the degree to which race, like religion, remains a taboo topic in France. While Obama talks about running a campaign transcending race, an increasing number of French blacks are pushing for, in effect, the reverse.
Having always thought it was more racially enlightened than strife-torn America, France finds itself facing the prospect that it has actually fallen behind on that score.
Meanwhile, this past weekend, 60 cars were burned and some 50 young people scuffled with police and firemen, injuring several of them, in a poor minority suburb of Vitry-le-Franois, in the Marne region of northeast France.
Incidents like the ones over the weekend bring to mind the rioting that exploded across France three years ago. Since it abolished slavery 160 years ago, the country has officially declared itself to be colorblind but seeing Obama, a new generation of French blacks is arguing that its high time here for precisely the sort of frank discussions that in America have preceded the nomination of a major black candidate.
This black consciousness is reflected not just in daily conversation, but also in a dawning culture of books and music by young French blacks like Youssoupha, a cheerful, toothy 28-year-old, who was sent here from Congo by his parents to get an education at 10, raised by an aunt who worked in a school cafeteria in a poor suburb, and told by guidance counselors that he shouldn't be too ambitious. Instead, he earned a masters degree from the Sorbonne.
Then, like many well-educated blacks in this country, he hit a brick wall. "I found myself working in fast-food places with people who had the equivalent of a 15-year-old's level of education," he recalled.
So he turned to rap, out of frustration as much as anything, finding inspiration in "négritude", an ideology of black pride conceived in Paris during the 1920s and 30s by Aimé Césaire, the French poet and politician from Martinique, and Léopold Sédar Senghor, the poet who became Senegal's first president.
Its philosophy, as Sartre once put it, was a kind of antiracist racism, a celebration of shared black heritage.
"Négritude" and Césaire are back. When Césaire died in April, at 94, his funeral in Fort-de-France, Martinique, was broadcast live on French television. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his rival Ségolene Royal both attended. Just three years ago, Sarkozy, as head of a center-right party and not yet president, supported a law (repealed after much protest) that compelled French schools to teach the positive aspects of colonialism. The next year, Césaire refused to meet with him. Now here was Sarkozy flying to the former French colony (today one of the country's overseas departments, meaning he could troll for votes) to pay tribute to the poet laureate of "négritude".
That said, as a country France definitely sends out mixed messages. Négritude is a concept they just don't want to hear about, Youssoupha raps in "Render Unto Césaire" on his latest album, A Chaque Frere (To Each Brother). A regular short feature on French public television, Citoyens Visibles, hosted by a young actress, Hafsia Herzi, celebrates French artists with foreign origins.
At the same time, it is against the rules for the government to conduct official surveys according to race. Consequently, nobody even knows for certain how many black citizens there are. Estimates vary between 3 million and 5 million out of a population of more than 61 million.
"Can you imagine if French officials said, 'Well, we're not sure, the population of France may be 65 million, or maybe its 30 million'?" declared a somewhat exasperated Patrick Lozes, founder of Cran, a black organisation devised not long ago partly to gather statistics the government won't.
When he sat down to talk the other morning, the first two words out of his mouth were Barack Obama. "The idea behind not categorising people by race is obviously good; we want to believe in the republican ideal," he said. "But in reality we're blind in France, not colorblind but information blind, and just saying people are equal doesn't make them equal."
He ticked off some obvious numbers: one black member representing continental France in the National Assembly among 555 members; no continental French senators out of some 300; only a handful of mayors out of some 36,000, and none from the poor Paris suburbs.
To this may be added Crans findings that the percentage of blacks in France who hold university degrees is 55, compared with 37 per cent for the general population. But the number of blacks who get stuck in the working class is 45 per cent, compared with 34 per cent for the national average.
"There's total hypocrisy here," Léonora Miano said. Shes a black author, 37, originally from Cameroon, whose recent novel Tels des Astres E{aac}teints (Like Extinguished Stars) is about race relations as seen through the eyes of three black immigrants.
"For me it was really strange when I arrived 17 years ago to find people here never used the word race," Miano said over coffee one afternoon at Café Beaubourg. Outside, African immigrants hawked sunglasses to tourists.
"There is no such thing as a black community in France yet partly because we have such different histories," said Miano. An immigrant woman from Mali and another from Cameroon view the world in completely different ways.
"You also shouldn't think there isnt racism among blacks in France, between West Indians and Africans. There is. But ultimately were all black in the face of discrimination." Then she smiled: "Too bad I forgot to wear my Obama T-shirt."
The New York Times
A new black consciousness is emerging in France, lately hastened by, of all things, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States. An article in Le Monde described how Obama is stirring up high hopes among blacks here. Even seeing the word "noir" (black) in a French newspaper was an occasion for surprise until recently.
Americans, who have debated race relations since the dawn of the Republic, may find it hard to grasp the degree to which race, like religion, remains a taboo topic in France. While Obama talks about running a campaign transcending race, an increasing number of French blacks are pushing for, in effect, the reverse.
Having always thought it was more racially enlightened than strife-torn America, France finds itself facing the prospect that it has actually fallen behind on that score.
Meanwhile, this past weekend, 60 cars were burned and some 50 young people scuffled with police and firemen, injuring several of them, in a poor minority suburb of Vitry-le-Franois, in the Marne region of northeast France.
Incidents like the ones over the weekend bring to mind the rioting that exploded across France three years ago. Since it abolished slavery 160 years ago, the country has officially declared itself to be colorblind but seeing Obama, a new generation of French blacks is arguing that its high time here for precisely the sort of frank discussions that in America have preceded the nomination of a major black candidate.
This black consciousness is reflected not just in daily conversation, but also in a dawning culture of books and music by young French blacks like Youssoupha, a cheerful, toothy 28-year-old, who was sent here from Congo by his parents to get an education at 10, raised by an aunt who worked in a school cafeteria in a poor suburb, and told by guidance counselors that he shouldn't be too ambitious. Instead, he earned a masters degree from the Sorbonne.
Then, like many well-educated blacks in this country, he hit a brick wall. "I found myself working in fast-food places with people who had the equivalent of a 15-year-old's level of education," he recalled.
So he turned to rap, out of frustration as much as anything, finding inspiration in "négritude", an ideology of black pride conceived in Paris during the 1920s and 30s by Aimé Césaire, the French poet and politician from Martinique, and Léopold Sédar Senghor, the poet who became Senegal's first president.
Its philosophy, as Sartre once put it, was a kind of antiracist racism, a celebration of shared black heritage.
"Négritude" and Césaire are back. When Césaire died in April, at 94, his funeral in Fort-de-France, Martinique, was broadcast live on French television. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his rival Ségolene Royal both attended. Just three years ago, Sarkozy, as head of a center-right party and not yet president, supported a law (repealed after much protest) that compelled French schools to teach the positive aspects of colonialism. The next year, Césaire refused to meet with him. Now here was Sarkozy flying to the former French colony (today one of the country's overseas departments, meaning he could troll for votes) to pay tribute to the poet laureate of "négritude".
That said, as a country France definitely sends out mixed messages. Négritude is a concept they just don't want to hear about, Youssoupha raps in "Render Unto Césaire" on his latest album, A Chaque Frere (To Each Brother). A regular short feature on French public television, Citoyens Visibles, hosted by a young actress, Hafsia Herzi, celebrates French artists with foreign origins.
At the same time, it is against the rules for the government to conduct official surveys according to race. Consequently, nobody even knows for certain how many black citizens there are. Estimates vary between 3 million and 5 million out of a population of more than 61 million.
"Can you imagine if French officials said, 'Well, we're not sure, the population of France may be 65 million, or maybe its 30 million'?" declared a somewhat exasperated Patrick Lozes, founder of Cran, a black organisation devised not long ago partly to gather statistics the government won't.
When he sat down to talk the other morning, the first two words out of his mouth were Barack Obama. "The idea behind not categorising people by race is obviously good; we want to believe in the republican ideal," he said. "But in reality we're blind in France, not colorblind but information blind, and just saying people are equal doesn't make them equal."
He ticked off some obvious numbers: one black member representing continental France in the National Assembly among 555 members; no continental French senators out of some 300; only a handful of mayors out of some 36,000, and none from the poor Paris suburbs.
To this may be added Crans findings that the percentage of blacks in France who hold university degrees is 55, compared with 37 per cent for the general population. But the number of blacks who get stuck in the working class is 45 per cent, compared with 34 per cent for the national average.
"There's total hypocrisy here," Léonora Miano said. Shes a black author, 37, originally from Cameroon, whose recent novel Tels des Astres E{aac}teints (Like Extinguished Stars) is about race relations as seen through the eyes of three black immigrants.
"For me it was really strange when I arrived 17 years ago to find people here never used the word race," Miano said over coffee one afternoon at Café Beaubourg. Outside, African immigrants hawked sunglasses to tourists.
"There is no such thing as a black community in France yet partly because we have such different histories," said Miano. An immigrant woman from Mali and another from Cameroon view the world in completely different ways.
"You also shouldn't think there isnt racism among blacks in France, between West Indians and Africans. There is. But ultimately were all black in the face of discrimination." Then she smiled: "Too bad I forgot to wear my Obama T-shirt."
The New York Times
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