All Responses Are Not Created Equal

Abstract

This exploratory study makes a contribution to the literature on antiracism by analyzing how first-generation French Blacks of sub-Saharan African descent practice everyday antiracism. In doing so, it expands the demographic terrain of this research to highlight some particularities in the experience of everyday racism and antiracism for ethnoracial minorities of immigrant origins. In addition to experiencing forms of racism encountered by both immigrants and other native ethnoracial minorities, first-generation French Blacks (like other non-White first-generation Europeans), face symbolic exclusion from the national community and delegitimization of their claims to Europeanness. Examining their experiences sheds light on how race, immigration, and national identity intersect to generate unique experiences of racism and antiracism. This paper also contributes to our understanding of how social context shapes the range of everyday antiracist strategies at a person's disposal. Specifically, integrating Kasinitz et al.'s (2008) framework for categorizing incidents of racial discrimination and prejudice with Fleming et al.'s (2010) categorization of responses to stigmatization, I present an analysis of antiracist responses that takes into account both the nature of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator of racism (i.e., impersonal vs. personal) and the social context in which the encounter occurs (e.g., school, work, public space, etc). In doing so, I highlight how the conditions of a given incident of racism or discrimination set constraints on the range of antiracist responses an individual can practically (or feasibly) employ.

Black Feminism and Transnational Solidarity: Mobilization against Police Violence in France

“…Here, I am influenced by Patricia Hill Collins's (1986) conceptualization of the "outsider-within" which has been useful in theorizing how I have been simultaneously constructed as both an insider and outsider when conducting fieldwork. As I have illustrated elsewhere, throughout my fieldwork interlocuters constructed me as an outsider due to my status as a non-French person and U.S. citizen, and as an insider due to my status as a Black person (and Black woman specifically) ; see also Bickerstaff 2012). Thus, my positionality and multiple statuses are directly implicated in conducting this research.…”

How Neo-Liberalism Has Transformed France's Symbolic Boundaries?

“…53 Sociologists are also producing detailed studies of this group, documenting how they understand and respond to stigmatization and discrimination. 54 Their stronger collective identity and heightened public visibility, to some extent, may contribute to the symbolic boundaries that are now being constructed against this group by the proponents of republican color-blindness. Surveys show, however, that the index of tolerance of minorities has remained relatively stable since 1990 when it comes to blacks, perhaps because this category includes both Caribbean citizens and African immigrants.…”