The Notion of "Home"
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Out of all the aspects of these readings I find the dissonance between Baldwin's perception of Algerians and Algerian's perceptions of themselves to be the most interesting. While Baldwin certainly acknowledges the standard French opinion of Algerians, highlighting the incredible prejudice they face and the poverty they often life in, he describes their situation with what I almost detect as a hint of rose-tinted glasses. While it wouldn't be fair to say that he envies the Algerians (especially since he outright says that he doesn't) I can't help but shake the feeling that he wishes he had more experiences like that of the Algerians, in as much as "they knew exactly where home was".
In Baldwin's eyes, the Algerians living in France had, at least, a connection to their roots. They were colonized roots, undoubtably, but in contrast with the Black American, whose ancestors were ripped from their home and stripped of all connections to "home", that is one thing that Algerians could claim: their home, Algeria.
Baldwin describes being told that he is "evolved" by the White French, while the Algerian Muslims are "not-civilized" in an interesting opposition from the North American context: Enslaved Muslims often being better treated than Enslaved Pagans on the basis of being "more evolved".
The interviews that Martin recounts also don't seem to paint the picture that Algerians (or other previously colonized minority groups) have an idea of "home" in the way that Baldwin describes. The vast majority of those interviewed seem to feel that they are not truly "French", and that they never could be, despite some of them being second or third generation Frenchmen. To Baldwin's point it is also true that some of these people, as a coping mechanism with being denied "French", reach towards their ancestral ties to Morocco or Algeria, while this is not possible for Black Americans. But how could Algeria be a proper "home" to someone who has only ever lived in France, surrounded by the White French and French social structures and attitudes.