Preemptive Karma: Black in a White Nation

November 08, 2005

Black in a White Nation

I haven't written about the riots in France for a couple of reasons. One, I'm just overwhelmed. There is so much crap--bad news going to worse--that I can't stand to really think about this stuff anymore.

And the second reason--the reason that it is so hard--is that every news story I read pretty much stoked my bigotry. Because here's a secret--no matter how much I insist that all Muslims aren't violent, it's hard to believe when that's all you're fed. And we've been getting a very steady diet of it here in the US. Couple this with the side dishes of "Muslimfundamentalistmenaceomigod," "marauding Muslims torch a nursery school! a nursery schoooooollll!!!" and "Jihadis are out to kill Westerners," and I had some deep breathing to do before I could venture into the fray. It tripped every button to every stereotype that's in my brain.

Add to this mix the right-wing gloating and Schadenfraude, and I was reluctant to touch it at first.

Two teenaged boys of North African descent were electrocuted after hiding in a substation after they ran from the police. They were young Black men in a White nation. Although they were not involved with the break-in the police had investigated, they had good reason to fear the cops.

Cases of police brutality were reported. They frequently involved disputes arising from police identity checks. In April several lawyers’ associations expressed concern that such checks – which have led in recent years to increasing numbers of people being charged by police with "insulting behaviour" or "rebellion" – tended to occur in urban areas of particular "sensitivity". Such areas have large populations of young people of non-European ethnic origin.

French national Karim Latifi alleged that in February he was racially abused and physically assaulted by police officers after intervening in an incident in a Paris street. He said that up to 15 officers were present at the assault, during which he was allegedly hit with truncheons, punched and kicked. As a result, his head became swollen and his nose was broken. He was held at a police station for about 15 minutes, after which he was told that he would not be charged. Karim Latifi lodged a criminal complaint, which was set aside by the prosecutor in July on the grounds that the investigation into the complaint had "not been able to distinguish sufficiently the nature of the offence" to enable prosecution. However, this was an administrative decision and judicial proceedings were continuing.

On 31 December a lawyer, Daniel François, was asked to assist a 17-year-old boy held in police custody at Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis). The lawyer notified the duty officer that he wished to register that his client had been subjected to acts of violence by police officers, but his attempts to do so were reportedly obstructed. After an argument Daniel François was allegedly thrown out of the police station by six or seven officers, but returned. He was then stripped, held for 15 hours and charged with "rebellion" and "insulting behaviour". Daniel François subsequently took his client to hospital for treatment of head, nose and leg injuries.

The large Muslim community in France "is particularly the subject of intolerant and discriminatory attitudes" says the report, noting also acts of anti-Semitism.

This is part of the background of these kids' lives. Besides fear of arrest--a valid fear for a Black person in a White country--they had real reason to feel unsafe with the cops around, period. So they hid, and they died, because they were afraid.

And people were fed up. Black Looks has an excellent round-up.

Following the death of the boys on Thursday there were two days of riots. On the Saturday community members in an attempt to calm the situation organised a silent march in memory of the teenagers. In the evening, some 150 young Africans met with the Mayor to discuss the events. The mayor talked about the cost of the damage but did not make any reference to the heavy handed policing. The youths became very angry at the police, the repression, the abusive language directed at their mothers, calling them sluts. The police began to arrive with flashballs (for shooting rubber bullets) and riot gear provoking the crowds. They then told the brother of one of the dead youths to go home. He took three steps towards the police who then began to fire tear gas at the crowd. The following day, about 8.30pm on Sunday evening there was another incident which took place around the local Mosque. By this time according to Netlex things had calmed down but it seems the police presence was heavy in the area. It is not clear what exactly happened but the police released tear gas grenades one of which landed in the local Mosque during prayers which was full of families. A panic followed as the building filled with smoke and people were crying and coughing and running. It is this incident that triggered the riots again and they have continued ever since spreading into a worsening situation and spreading to other French cities.

There is a long history of racism in France, and frankly, in the rest of Europe. Even back in 1998, the the European Commission Against Racism noted the problems France had with people of color.

The report says: "France is still suffering from frequent and sporadic outbursts of racist activity, including some anti-Semitic incidents, as well as continuing discrimination in many fields of social and economic life."
The report describes the National Front as one of the most powerful extreme-right parties in Europe, "which presents an openly racist and xenophobic ideology."

Yes. The National Front, headed up by France's answer to David Duke, Jean Marie le Pen. Remember them?

The new voter-friendly Mr Le Pen insists he is neither racist nor anti-semitic. But Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old boy whose parents came from the Comoros, was shot in the back and killed in Marseille in 1995 by a group of Front supporters out fly-posting for Mr Le Pen. He subsequently described the incident as self-defence.

Shooting someone in the back is self-defense. . . how?

Mr. Le Pen's election manifesto says that immigrants pose "a mortal danger" to France. He wants national preference for French citizens in jobs, housing and social benefits, and a halt to further immigration. French culture is to be reinforced at every opportunity.

That was not always possible in Orange, Vitrolles, Marignane and Toulon because it was illegal, but the elected Front mayors did their best.

They withdrew subsidies from festivals that showed homosexual movies, closed cultural centres that hosted "non-French" events, stopped schools from offering special meals to Jewish and Muslim children, and banned municipal libraries from subscribing to leftwing publications.

In Vitrolles, the National Front town council briefly offered a £500 "baby subsidy" to couples who added to their family - providing that both parents were French or European nationals. The measure was overturned, but the point had been made.

Out of 16 candidates, the National Front was the second contender to Jacques Chirac in France's 2002 election. And while the second election saw Chirac win with over 82 percent of the vote, it said something pretty stark that Le Pen could even be considered a contender.

So many news stories make it sound like these are immigrants, and they aren't. They are French citizens who have been told repeatedly that they are the problem, that their culture is shameful and should be hidden, that they are unemployable, that they are only good for crumbling housing projects and crime-ridden neighborhoods. That they aren't really a part of France.

I mean, America never did anything like that. We don't fuel hysteria, feed Black people to the wolves, push them off to certain neighborhoods, place them in crap schools, and brutalize brutalize them.

Oh.

Wait. Never mind. Maybe we have.

November 08, 2005

Black in a White Nation

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