The French approach forces minorities to act as if the playing field were equal and delegitimizes attempts at political activism that is based on the reality of an unequal society, rather than the ideal of a colour blind one. It is sort of similar in mindset to the nineteenth century classical liberal rejection of [working] class based activism, and at any state or social attempt to counteract class inequality. The obstacles in the way of racial/ethnic minorities aren't as high as the class ones in the nineteenth century, but they certainly do exist. And the most insiduous and powerful ones are not deliberate racism, but the unconscious networking of people with others like themselves, a sort of naive and unacknowledged form of white (and predominantly male) self promotion system that is denied to others in the name of a non-existent equality.
And Bérégovoy. And Lauvergeon. And Ghosn. And Royal. And Lagarde. And Seguin. And Kron. And Gallois.
Are those names or something?
(I kid, I kid.) Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
In the UK we'd say they're mostly middle class.
Then again, political leadership doesn't necessarily translate into policy leadership - only policy implementation.
Pols are front people for various interests, and the real battle is between these interests.
Why does everybody like to think that it won't also work for this generation? Like nicta noted in the OT, the kids of the most recent immigration are largely entering the mainstream, almost unnoticed.
We only talk about the minority left behind and in trouble, but the thing is - it's a minority and it's main problems are the same as that of the other, non-immigrant population in the same neighborhoods, and it's largely economic. The racial capegoating is largely a consequence of the vicious politics of hate of the hardright (Sarkozy included in that repect) to scapegoat them as a distraction for other antisocial economic policies. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
