The Politics of Race-Blindness

Abstract

The discourse of “race-blindness” in contemporary France cannot help but engender what it seeks to evade, “race” consciousness. Nowhere, is this dynamic better illustrated than by the current public debate on “Black” consciousness, “Black” identity discourses, and “French Black” activism that have emerge in response to an avoided “race” question in hexagonal France where “Blacks” have now reached a critical mass. In examining these issues, I argue that “French Black” activists are, however, limiting their own effectiveness when its adherents also retreat from a critical concept of “race” in their anti-black struggles. While the potent ideals of French republicanism are intrinsic to “race” avoidance, this stance unwittingly contributes to the prevalent practice of camouflaging the very discrimination and racism that such activists seek to document through controversial ethno-racial statistics, presently proscribed in France. Negated with “race” is the under-stated significance of the semantic particularity of the notion of “black” and its relevance in anti-black discrimination, also explored in this essay. By this, I am referring to those stigmatizing meanings of “black” prior to its incorporation into social categories used to designate and rank people so-perceived and so-denoted in Europe where those meanings crystallized and migrated beyond its shores. The critical use of “race” by these activists, then, would force the recognition, presently occulted, that this construct has played a fundamental role in structuring belonging and opportunity in France, and thereby buttress demands for statistics to demonstrate and analyze that lived reality towards its undoing. Ultimately, the existence of anti-blackness and anti-black struggles serve to illustrate that France has not escaped its “race” question or fulfilled it promises of “race-blind” equality.

Theorizing Ethnic and Racial Movements in the Global Age

“…As noted earlier, Black activism abroad (Hanchard 2003) illustrates interconnections between movements across nations as well as the powerful influence of collective memory in shaping how ethnoracial politics unfold globally. For example, Keaton (2010) points out that the Representative Coalition of Black Associations works closely with the NAACP while Paschel (2010) demonstrates that the memory of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement continues to influence Black activists in Colombia. Despite the relevance of the history and memory of U.S. anti-racism to race politics in other countries, relatively little is known about how ethnic and racial minorities outside of the United States view the legacies of the CRM and Black power movements.…”

Self-Identification in a Spanish barrio and a French banlieue: The Case of North African Second Generations

“…Comparative Integration Context Theory (Crul & Mollenkopf, 2012;Crul & Thomson, 2007) shows that varying political and cultural reactions to Muslims in Europe shape youths' identities. In the case of France, color-blind ideology (Beaman, 2017;Chacal, 2015;Keaton, 2010), rampant Islamophobia (Abdellali & Mohammed, 2016) and the instrumentalization of the Muslim middle class by political parties (Wihtol de Wenden & Leveau, 2001) in some banlieues gives rise to a "distinct community" and "distinct identity" concerning ethnic origins (Barwick & Beaman, 2019;Chacal, 2015;Roy, 2009). The most recent French survey on second generation integration (Simon et al, 2018) and other case studies (Pégram, 2020) demonstrated that an important part of the second generation living in the suburbs do not identify themselves strongly with the majority culture or feel French only, although their connections to the heritage group remain strong.…”

“…Also, some researchers identify a new conservative Islam that has grown in popularity in certain banlieues, one offering a local and a global belonging through the umma-the universal community of believers (Mushaben, 2008). The youth learn new ethnic and community norms in the local mosques or online, a dynamic that is not just individual as happens in the middle classes (Beaman, 2017), but also collective and does not hinder identification with the French identity (Keaton, 2010), though a small segment is starting to reject outright the institutions of the Republic (Eseverri-Mayer, 2019) and develop a reactive ethnicity. This paper uses the definition of reactive ethnicity that Portes and Rumbaut (2001) proposed, meaning this kind of self-identification as an ethnic reaffirmation, increased peer solidarity, and susceptibility to racism.…”

Colonizing intersectionality: replicating racial hierarchy in feminist academic arguments

“…With regard to the Netherlands, for example, Essed and Nimako (2006) describe specific strategies deployed to deny racisms and delegitimize research on race, while Wekker (2004) describes the erasure of Dutch colonialism from schools and public discussion. With regard to France, Keaton (2010) examines the difficulties of discourses of 'raceblindness' in the face of anti-blackness (see also Keaton, Sharpley-Whiting, & Stovall, 2012). With regard to the Nordic countries, Loftsdó ttir and Jensen (2012) examine how ideologies associated with colonialism underpin Nordic identities.…”