CECILE EMEKE'S "STROLLING" SERIES, FRANCE - FLANER EPISODE 2

Strolling / Flaner

Connecting The Scattered 

And Untold Stories 

of the 
Black/African Diaspora 

FRANCE

History

Formation of Black French Society, 

French Dedication to Uniformity/Conforming 

Colorblind Ideology is so strong this woman says they don't know how many black people there are in France. Sounds like no census break down by race. Individuals don't have the language to talk about race and therefore racism.

The Series

'Strolling' is a short documentary film series created by Cecile Emeke where we take a stroll with people in various cities and countries around the world, having refreshingly raw and honest conversations about various issues at the forefront of their society. We touch on everything from feminism, sexuality, gender, race and politics to philosophy, art, history, capitalism, war and poverty… and everything else you can think of.

MORE INFO ON FRANCE: Black people are estimated to be about 4% of the French population. And it can only be estimated because it's against the law to ask or know. French law makes sure there's no census numbers by race. Hence, France's claims to having little or no racism for decades and decades.

After watching this episode of "Flaner" (or "Strolling") and doing a little reading, I am a lot less confused about how their racism-free reputation comes to conflict with most everything I see out of France. That Charlie Hedbo garbage makes more sense too.

The other thing I'm getting out of this series and other series from  other countries, is that our 13% of the population in the United States is huge and powerful. The  4% in France and 2.9% in Canada? They can be completely ignored. In the previous episode, we heard that blacks aren't represented in movies or TV. And now, after this history/current events episode of "Flaner" I know I'll never hear much about how blacks in France are poorer, or being cheated in the work place, or never advancing into management positions etc. There's more than one way to kill a people slowly, you know? Putting colorblind ideology into your laws is step one. 


By the way, French Prisons are 60% - 70% Muslim. France isn't color, ethnicity, or religion blind. They just make sure it's hard to figure out what's going on by declaring everybody...i dunno...a white male?   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802560.html

French Constitutional law, which embraces equality as a founding principle, prohibits the state from collecting data about racial, ethnic or religious data, and French culture is deeply averse to the legitimacy of racial identity.

France is thus, in American parlance, officially "color-blind."
But in France as in the United States, the principle of color-blindness masks a deeply color-conscious society, in which race and ethnicity are closely linked to discrimination and disadvantage...In the absence of racial identity data, it is difficult for the state to uncover such discrimination. 

This paper examines how discrimination is measured in the United States, and suggests that some of the methods used in the United States are available in France despite the limitations imposed by French law.

READ MORE
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1236362 

David Oppenheimer

U.C. Berkely School of Law