Ok so apparently in America using the word « race » is normal but in France it isn’t and i’m going to try to tell you why.
So the notion of race was created in France in the 18th century. It was used to classify all the subdivisions of mankind according to some biologic differences (described in…
The first time I saw an American TV Show without dubs (about the time I entered French high school at almost 15 nine years ago), and heard the phrase “an individual of the [caucasian/black/asian] race”, I was convinced it was racist.
Because acknowledging that there is “races“ within the human race (see what i did there?) in French is racist (again, ethymology is important) because even putting different kinds of humans in different boxes because they have a certain genetic trait that makes them produce more or less melanin is WRONG. Later a French-American friend showed me her passport where there was litterally a “race” field on (which said “mixed” in her case).
This is strictly forbidden in France because of the post WWII legacy: this kind of taxonomy when used on an administrative level can lead to dire, dire consequences for any ethnic group that is one day both in the category “minority” and “scapegoat”.
Everytime a new law was trying to pass that would collect, and list anyone by any criteria, there was a huge outcry in France because it would remind us of how Jews were treated during WWII.
Now that the Godwin Gods have been appeased, I can conclude with what is my opinin and no one else’s (for now…):
To me, even using this kind of word, the word “race” which is the root of the word “racism” that we’re supposed to fight, is strange and foreign and offensive.
I grew to accept it because as a Frenchwoman who learned to speak French before speaking any other language, I can’t change English. It is your prerogative to make it grow in a direction or another and being offended because a word in a language that is foreign to me is wrong, because as a foreigner I do not know the actual context and history of this word.
It would be cultural appropriation to try to change it to suit my needs, something which is a capital crime on Tumblr, so I guess it’s not something you do in the US…
SEE? I RESPECT YOUR LANGUAGE AND CULTURE BY TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IT IN ITS CONTEXT OR AT LEAST ASSUMING THERE IS ONE!
Thanks to both of you.
That’s something I thought about this night. Our differences of langage and culture. I remember seeing this post about Raven (we all know Raven). She was telling that she wasn’t an afro-american girl, she was an american girl.
And people were offended by that! I didn’t understand at first. Then I learned how America especially were considering their roots, their “races” (I don’t like saying that neither) etc etc… I learned why people were offended. In france people would have congratulated her.
And I’m not talking about white people (it’s also really weird for us to talk about “white people” because it’s separating people in function of the color of their skin and of course we cannot do that), I’m talking about everyone, black people in first! I saw it in another post, and it was true: what is more important for us, is that we are french.
"Je suis français avant tout!” (“above everything I’m french”) that’s what you can heard if you dare talking about race to a POC person generally following by a “Comme toi!” (“like you” and I agree because it means we’re equal, because of the law, they’re french so they’re under this law too).
I think it’s a different way of thinking than in America (if I’m wrong, tell me of course). It’s not better, it’s not worse. Racism still exists for both of our countries. But it’s the way we’re thinking in France.
The ‘using the word race a lot makes you sound like a neonazi’ thing and dividing people into races implies there’s a ranking system going on (particularly with ‘the whatever race’ wording) applies to a lot of europe in my experience to greater or lesser degrees in various countries. But in general white french people seem to be more aware of this than white british people, to an extent at least (particularly than white british people who’ve picked up how to talk about racism from americanised contexts like tumblr – who seem to start using the word race with less discomfort comparatively)
britain mostly deals with this by using ethnicity for most things, like forms will ask for your ethnicity etc, thats absolutely just dividing into very similar categories as you would if you were saying race and calling it something different (hence terms like white british its kind of a hybrid system almost?) because ethnicity is seen as a more neutral word? that doesnt have the implied superiority inferiority connotations that race does. but from what you’ve said even that wouldn’t be a thing in france? and certainly not a census question
So I think its not necessarily an english-language thing? but maybe an american english thing, more so at least. I would say here using the word race and saying groups are races is becoming more normal mostly because of american influence (partly also because shared language) and because there isn’t the same legacy of occupation during ww2 so its an easier foundation to shake perhaps – people being grouped into races never went well before is an idea that exists but possibly less prominantly. It’d be interesting to know if american influence for this has less of an effect in france because of those two things? I imagine it does
thats possibly partly to do with france being not brilliant at acknowledging nazi collaboration and other crimes under the vichy government? (“what happened to” is incredibly passive, being reminded of what you did to jewish and roma people is what you dont like). Whereas britian was never occupied so doesnt have that same relationship to the holocaust (equally bad at acknowledging the whole not taking refugees and/or sending them to internment camps thing though it just has different impacts today than the french experience)
fearlessstateofmind backup 