Flâner
May 22, 2015 6:42 AM Subscribe
Flâner is a series by Cecile Emeke (nyt) about blackness in France: episode 1; episode 2; episode 3.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- goodnewsfortheinsane
I was so vindicated to hear the young women in the first video speak out about how everyone in France is expected to dress and act in a very uniform, distinctly White way. Hell, I'm a Jewish girl from Marin County, California, and *I* wasn't white enough for them, it's annoying as heck!
It's super awesome, at any rate, that black French people are starting to have more of a voice because there's definitely a lot of bad, cartoony stereotypes about all the different French minorities and they are rarely given the space to speak for themselves in French media. At least back in the day when I was living there (2008 - 2012).
posted by Mooseli at 12:52 PM on May 22, 2015
It's super awesome, at any rate, that black French people are starting to have more of a voice because there's definitely a lot of bad, cartoony stereotypes about all the different French minorities and they are rarely given the space to speak for themselves in French media. At least back in the day when I was living there (2008 - 2012).
posted by Mooseli at 12:52 PM on May 22, 2015
Breath of fresh air to see things said on video that you hear every single day in hushed tones at the office between people who trust one another. To hear it said comfortably, without afterthought? Tellingly, you have to be in places tagged as "no-go zones" by white French people. They scoffed at the Fox thing, but they know the zones. Everyone does. I knew which zones in and around Paris were considered that way years before I even lived here. TV announcers get the tell-tale sneer, the added meaning as they carefully pronounce "aujourd'hui en région parisienne, dans le département 93..." Neuilly, though? Oh those rich white people get Neuilly introduced as if it were an angel's halo.
I was so vindicated to hear the young women in the first video speak out about how everyone in France is expected to dress and act in a very uniform, distinctly White way. Hell, I'm a Jewish girl from Marin County, California, and *I* wasn't white enough for them, it's annoying as heck!
I'm a white woman brought up by Christians, speak French without an accent to the point I get asked which region (of France) I'm from, dress white as hell, hell I am white as hell what with my Norwegian-Irish background, have a degree in French, have worked for three companies with "France" in their name (air, gaz, électricité ;) ), earned dual citizenship through naturalization, have lived here for nearly 20 years, and I am a foreigner to white French people. Even leftist ones, just like the women say. They're totally right to call it cuckoo, there's simply no other way to put it, I have given up playing diplomat. There is no diplomacy when the only people who are right are white French-born French people. It's them and everyone else, and they tag everyone else as being "communautariste" (the "communities" thing the woman mentions in the first video). It's so typical. "We're blind to color! We don't see race! But THEY stay in their groups and that's wrong!" say all the always-right white people in their close-knit groups of always-right white people. Who have Arab friends. They always have at least one Arab friend to pull out like a playing card: "I'm not racist! I have an Arab friend!" (They don't learn Arabic or bother trying to even understand that there are different dialects spoken.) As the woman in the second video says, it has a hell of a lot to do with how colonialism is NOT taught. It's a travesty.
Anyway I could rant for a while. These videos are wonderful. Merci.
posted by fraula at 1:52 PM on May 22, 2015 [8 favorites]
I was so vindicated to hear the young women in the first video speak out about how everyone in France is expected to dress and act in a very uniform, distinctly White way. Hell, I'm a Jewish girl from Marin County, California, and *I* wasn't white enough for them, it's annoying as heck!
I'm a white woman brought up by Christians, speak French without an accent to the point I get asked which region (of France) I'm from, dress white as hell, hell I am white as hell what with my Norwegian-Irish background, have a degree in French, have worked for three companies with "France" in their name (air, gaz, électricité ;) ), earned dual citizenship through naturalization, have lived here for nearly 20 years, and I am a foreigner to white French people. Even leftist ones, just like the women say. They're totally right to call it cuckoo, there's simply no other way to put it, I have given up playing diplomat. There is no diplomacy when the only people who are right are white French-born French people. It's them and everyone else, and they tag everyone else as being "communautariste" (the "communities" thing the woman mentions in the first video). It's so typical. "We're blind to color! We don't see race! But THEY stay in their groups and that's wrong!" say all the always-right white people in their close-knit groups of always-right white people. Who have Arab friends. They always have at least one Arab friend to pull out like a playing card: "I'm not racist! I have an Arab friend!" (They don't learn Arabic or bother trying to even understand that there are different dialects spoken.) As the woman in the second video says, it has a hell of a lot to do with how colonialism is NOT taught. It's a travesty.
Anyway I could rant for a while. These videos are wonderful. Merci.
posted by fraula at 1:52 PM on May 22, 2015 [8 favorites]
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However, after a couple of minutes, each episode's looped music becomes way too much. It's too repetitive, and it's mixed in too loud. Pity, because it detracts from the overall effect.
posted by kandinski at 8:17 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]