Colors are less of a problem here then elsewhere... If you integrate !
is just not the experience of people I have known.
And the great glory of the French system is that there is no state collection of data, so we cannot know the truth. Although all the privately collected data suggests that there are significant problems in France.
And I have written long posts on the absurdity of classifying the banlieu problems as being about race, so I'm not just parroting Murdochia, as much as you might like to insinuate...
I'm not romanticising the Britain I grew up in as a brown person, there was a lot of prejudice and it is not magically subsiding, just slowly moving. But all the small pieces of evidence that exist about France show slower movement. And it's remarkably convenient for both the white majority and the state of France to proclaim ideological reasons for not collecting statistics on the experience of ethnic minorities and at the same time classify narrative descriptions of problems for ethnic minorities as "mere anecdotes and propaganda."
I don't judge Britain on this problem. I'v been there often in old times, was born and raised in Bengal, seeing districts in flame when I was flying my kite on the roof top terraces (as all kids there)... I reached France late and for me it was a"strange" country, I had to discover to live in!
That's why I would maybe like that people get through the surface of the "I know some examples" to practice a bit the society. I agree that it's far from perfect, I agree also that even the french medias play the same Murdoch's game then elsewhere...
Still, I work on cities and "new" (or old) districts, I build social housing and sometimes rehabilitate old ones with the people still inside for the duration o the works. I work with sociologists, anthropologists, and all the full lot of counseling structures we have... And I'm not romanticising either between knifes, guns, and changing old people's landmarks, and the drastic policy of pushing the poor further again, etc.
White majority isn't anymore a given in "metropolis", it still is true in the countryside ! Racism here can be worse from a town to the other next door, then between people! Even the "suburbia's" gangs have no real ethnicity, but a mixed population...
I had once a student who had to stop his studies because he was severely burned to the face by a molotov cocktail thrown at his car, because he was from Syria (there was no riot, pure gratuitous act)... But I also have other stories.. From both sides, hundred of them!
I agree about what you say about racism as a whole, but I don't link it to community vs collectivity... You'll find that cancer everywhere alas, but I don't believe that by making categories or communities you'll achieve a better world ! "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
My reply wasn't meant to be felt as such :-) "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
