ALL UP IN MY KOOL AID AND DON'T EVEN KNOW THE FLAVA'

Recently, a person wrote me asking how I handled racism in the South of France.  This person claimed they had lived here and found the people extremely racist to the point of driving him out of the country.  The writer claimed that they were East Asian and Caucasian. 

When I asked him to describe  his experiences, I never heard from him again.

He ran away.  Puff!

Numerous persons of color…all kinds of colors, let me tell you… have asked me about French racism assuming that I would be qualified to discuss racism in France simply because I’m Black.  

I am an American.

 I consider myself an expert on racism in America as an eighth generation (on my Mom’s side, even more on my Dad’s), Scots, Irish, Seminole, African decent American citizen, but am not arrogant enough to believe I am able to discuss something that exists in France between it’s Caucasian citizens and its immigrants from the former colonies….somebody’s former colonies, anyway.

Whatever racism which exists in France I’m sure is being worked out among its citizens as it was in America over a 500 year period of racial terrorism inflicted on a small racially mixed minority group called Nig___rs, Negros…uh, Colored people…um Afro…um Blacks Ummmm……

Anyway, the Black people of America who were imported in chains to build the very infrastructure of a new Western, Eurocentric society had to find a way with very little help from the outside world to assert its humanity in their own country.  No one ever threatened American with divestiture, for example, due to its human rights violations of the Negroes of the US. 

We had to do the work all by ourselves.

Racism in America, is violent, institutional, simultaneously blatant and subtle and is incredibly, incredibly Butch!  You know?

"Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men—how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?"”

                                                                  ~Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Why ask me about French people?  Ask the colored French people about French people.

Perhaps there is certain air of nobility which surrounds people who have risen above oppressive regimes the way Black Americans have, which might elicit envy among others, who have no idea of who you are except for Will Smith movies, Mike Tyson, Martin Luther King speeches and Jazz music.  As a result they try to *“bite offa yo’ history” with a “high five.”

*BITING:

(Definition: Copying in a plagiaristic context, though mainly just unoffical fad-related things; such as made-up words, clothing styles, types of music, etc.

ie: "Dude, those kids are totally biting on my style!"

                                                                      ~The Urban Dictionary)

What bothers me in France is far more complex than the so-called racial issues.

My problem is, why do the people in the North of France look at those of us who choose to live in the South of France, as right wing country bumpkin imitations of residents of the 16^th arrondissement in Paris? 

Answer that one, instead of trying to “steal my kool aid”.

Get it?


another viewpoint: http://deloryswelchtyson.blogspot.fr/2010/07/racism-in-france-is-it-racism-or.html

BLIND CRITICISM

J’en ai marre !!!!!

The tourist season has officially begun here on the French Riviera. What always arrives with the hordes is the inevitable and harsh criticism of French driving habits.


I’d like to intercept a bit with this blog before the Anglophones really start getting flagrant down here!

Everyone knows that anyone’s life can be irrevocably destroyed by an intoxicated or mentally disturbed driver on the road in any country by a driver of any nationality. My question is why have the French, in particular, been given such a bad rap as drivers?

I have been recipient many times of French driving hospitality. What I have found is that my French friends and acquaintances have displayed skill and grace at ever turn…so to speak. It’s no wonder, I later learned, considering what they have to go though in order to earn the privilege to drive in their country.

How may of you who have criticized the French actually studied for the French Permis de Conduire?


Too scared, right?


And I’m willing to bet…too broke!



Then, that means you don’t know bupkis about anything French.

Want to know how I came to this conclusion? Because it is expensive, difficult and studying for it would actually result in an evolution of thinking that would cause you to realise that you had no prior knowledge of what it takes to understand of the Gallic approach to manoeuvring safely through life in France. My philosophy is in order to criticize the French you should have been educated in France and taught by the French. How else can one understand the cultural nuances of a country which has the power to seduce millions of people through its doors, whether they be rich or poor, yellow green or blue, to a place which is probably the most complicated in all of Europe? Even people from rich and powerful countries are willing to test their fate in a country which for years will render them functional illiterates!


Years ago I took the driving school plunge…so I know of what I write.


I can’t overstate the fact that the pursuit of the French Permis de Conduire is an expensive, lengthy but profoundly informative study of the psychology of the French population. Believe me, studying this will enhance one’s relationships with the French people you encounter, do business with or with whom one becomes intimately involved. It will even enable one to distinguish a foreign driver from a French one.


Imagine that!


Case in point:

One sunny afternoon, a fellow student, who is also an American, and I left another gruelling session of La Code de la Route to stop at a corner café. As we approached the curb, a car came screeching towards us in a completely misguided attempt to park in a no parking zone.

Mr. America, hisses, ., “Look at that. After they get their permits, all rules fly out the window. How typically French!


My response was, “What makes you think the driver is French?”


He pointed to the French License plate on the Italian Fiat, and said, “Look… 06 (the code for the Alpes Maritimes)!”

As if on cue, two men emerge from the car, sharing a typically boisterous conversation in Italian!

Typically French, right?

So, this is the advice from yours truly…the Expat Curmudgeon Writer on the Côte d’Azur…to American drivers in France. Stop criticizing…stay alert and either take your bigotry and pack it in your little back packs and go back home… or just get off the road and take the friggin’n bus!