Africans in France
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Baldwin, being a Black American, has a very different experience in Paris than the Algerians he lives with. To begin with, the Algerians had a completely different perception of "home." While the ancestors of Black Americans had been brought to the U.S. through the slave trade, "had everything taken away" with "no place for [them] to go," the Algerians came to France looking for work and were determined to return back to their homeland in the future (Baldwin 2). They had fond memories of "opulence" that Black Americans like Baldwin were completely unfamiliar with. He did not relate to this melancholic longing for a motherland, a return. Baldwin is also treated way differently by the French, as opposed to how they treat the Algerians--they describe the Black American as "très évolué" and remark on how developed they are in comparison to the Arabs (4). It's a covertly evil form of discrimination, where the French try to show off how progressive and developed they are compared to the "raciste" Americans by "complimenting" Black Americans.
Martin's interviews with various Arabs living in France was also incredibly eye-opening. What I found particularly interesting was in Karim's interview when he described the French's view of Moroccans as "like a nice pet who’s inferior but not mean" (Martin 149). It reminded me of the Globe and Mail editorial we saw in the last class, where they described Arabs as "lazy and efficient" but "still human" and thus deserving of entry into Canada. It's an odd form of discrimination where the oppressor is trying to make themselves look good by not being outwardly hateful, but at the same time they have no respect for the oppressed.