Last winter break, I explored the culturally rich cities of London and Paris. Though I was intrigued by the historical majesty of London, I was eagerly anticipating my trip to the City of Lights. I had always been hypnotized and in a way blinded, by the lights and luster that the legend of Paris has historically evoked for so many blacks.
I couldn’t help but reflect back upon the travels of famous black expatriates of the ’40s and ’50s who sought to escape the suffocating constructions of blackness and the oppressive hand of Jim Crow racism in America by embracing France’s robust culture of intellectualism and their ability to envision a society unshackled by the color line. As I walked past the intimate cafes, I fantasized about how intellectually intriguing the conversations must have been between literary giants such as James Baldwin and Richard Wright, two black authors who embraced Paris as a space of intellectual and cultural freedom. Needless to say, I had love for France founded upon a history and mythology of race and class that have recently been seared away by the fires of the riots in the unseen poor suburbs of Marseille, Lille, Lyon and Paris.
I first realized Paris was no longer the Paris Baldwin and Wright once knew when casually watching MTV France. MTV had just played “New York, New York,” a video by rap artist Ja Rule, and then transitioned into a video by a French hip-hop artist. At first glance, I naïvely chuckled at the concept of Parisian hip-hop, but upon closer examination I realized there weren’t many differences in the visceral anger I observed in Ja Rule’s video from what I saw in Parisian hip-hop. The universal language of hip-hop that was perfected by African-American men in the streets of South Bronx, N.Y., has traveled across the oceans and into the souls of young West African and Arab third-generation Muslim immigrants who are fed up with pervasive racial discrimination and an inescapable economic prison that keeps the unemployment rate for this marginalized segment of the population hovering between 30 and 50 percent.
France’s democratic foundation is in jeopardy if its cherished maxim of liberte, egalite, fraternite rings hollow to a community of more than five million Muslims. The spiritual and political leadership in France, and globally as well, must seek to better integrate France’s growing Muslim population; if nations fail to do so it will be at their own peril, whether it is in the form of terrorism or civil unrest. France cannot hide behind faulty ideals of color blindness while deep rooted discrimination and lack of economic opportunity allows 26 percent of North African university graduates to remain unemployed while the overall national unemployment rate for university graduates is only 5 percent, and watch year after year as 555 political deputies are elected to represent metropolitan France, and not one is black or Muslim.
There are lessons for America to learn from this crisis in France for both sides of the political spectrum. As a liberal, I’ve been reconsidering my admiration of France’s massive welfare state, which is in part culpable in this crisis, by stifling economic growth. France’s overly secular society, which has antagonized Muslims by prohibiting Muslim women from wearing religious head scarves, should also make liberals rethink their stance on the breadth of the wall that separates church and state. On the other hand, conservatives must observe the tragic consequences of ignoring race and advocating a color-blind society as France has done by making it illegal to collect data on race.
Paris turned off its lights at sundown and was mourning the Asian tsunami tragedy while I was visiting. This darkness forced me to put down my camera and see Paris beyond the glamour and the overly prefabricated presentation that usually obstructs one from seeing the essence of the city. With only the soft glow of the evening sky and a few streetlamps, the mystique and grandeur of the city seemed muted and the city felt real. It was still a beautiful city, but a real city that must, like every other city in the world, wrestle with the darkness of race and class if it is to rediscover the light.
Kevin Pitts is an English literature graduate student. He can be reached at kpitts2@umd.edu.
