Being black in France and in United States: a comparison

Exposé Politique & international Questions sociales

Date de publication :

14/06/2007

Langue :

Anglais

Format :

.doc

Nombre de pages :

18 pages

Niveau :

grand public

Consulté :

5 fois

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Sommaire :

Sommaire

History and culture: colors and contrasts
1. A similar racial prejudice
2. A different history of contestation
Political science and political philosophy: the two sisters enemies
1. The French abstract universalism and doctrine of assimilation: antitheses of multiculturalism?
2. The United States: pluralism and multiculturalist policies
Sociology and politics: latent discriminations, contradictory policies of struggle
1. Some blatant inequalities
2. Equal opportunity without affirmative action?
Current debates and prospects
1. 2005: the sudden appearance of a black question in France. A complex issue merging identity, history and passions
2. A brown America and a ?moving color line?? The specificity of African-Americans at stake

Résumé :

"Penser et agir par nous-mêmes et pour nous-mêmes, en Nègres, accéder à la modernité sans piétiner notre authenticité". That is how the famous thinker of the "Négritude", Leopold Sendar Senghor, described the challenge that fell to black people in the whole world at the dawn of the 21st century. If the 20th century had been the time of fights for liberty and against oppressions of any kind, the next era should leave its mark as the time of recognition and respect. But that new awareness concerning black people must be developed in two contradictory ways, considering them as a whole community that has taken its revenge on history, racism and murderous stupidity as well as a kaleidoscope of unique, different and equal individuals who seek, as everybody, identity and consideration. That unavoidable dialectic makes black people's demands complex and latent all the more so since they concern people that have been suffering of uncountable oppressions during the history and that still know discriminations. They also arise in countries that have very different conceptions of their minorities: history, traditions of political philosophy and the burden of the past are mixed up to create a national policy for black people.
Moreover, from a global point of view, defining universally who is black and what it implies is quite difficult and requires political, racial, ethnic, societal or cultural considerations. If some people contend that one has to have a recent African descent to be considered as "black" while others think that the adjective and the denomination "black" must be given to all the individuals with a dark skin colour, regardless of their ethnic origin, we understand that the socio-political definitions of the "blackness" in each country are much more difficult to find. For example, the U.S. census considers as black every person who has origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. However, those socio-political constructions can scarcely explain the social reality of what is being black: according to the activist Nirmala Rajasingam : "I think the idea of a black identity was inspired by the Civil Rights movement in the united states. Unfortunately, now black is identified with people of African origin only, but it didn't used to be that way. It was used as a political term of people of colour uniting to fight racism" whereas according to Professor R. Bhopal, "in some circumstances the word black signifies all non-white minority populations, and in this use serves political purposes" . We could discuss indefinitely the definition of blackness but it is finally quite sterile. We should rather go from the theoretical debate to the practice aspects and study the various features of being black in two particular countries.
We will study, the role, the situation and the demands of black people in the united states and in france, the both sister enemies of the costs of the Atlantic Ocean that have always inspired and rejected, hated and loved each other. The importance of history and political philosophy will help us to understand the current situation and debates about black people, who still fight for their recognition in diametrically opposed contexts but who are equally influenced by history and by abstract values.
That is the paradox of every social improvement: it has to be planted in existing compost, rich of events and signification; otherwise it does not grow in a harmonious way, or does not grow at all.