go, les noirs! because you can be black and french

By Maboula Soumahoro for AFROPUNK 

These are dark times. The police continue to kill. And lie about it. Structural racism is still an issue in France. So is its denial. But I’m so happy things have now turned better as the National Assembly has just voted the removal of the word “race” from the first article of our French Constitution.

This constitutional article originally stated that the Republic guarantees equality of all citizens before the law, making no distinction on the basis of race or religion. When the constitutional revision process is completed, “race” will have been replaced by “sex”. All we will be free at last! The Republic will then no longer acknowledge distinctions on the basis of race.

For Blacks and other communities of color in France, this means that we no longer exist. In other words, racial discriminations will be difficult to prove and fight in courts if racial categories are no longer recognized and protected by the Constitution.

Who cares? Let’s be honest, it’s not like France needed to recognize racial categories, right? And it’s not like these have real currency in the French context, as opposed to the situation in the U.S. It’s not like France, as a Western power, has actively participated in the launching of global white supremacy through wars and conquests, colonization, the slave trade, and slavery. France is colorblind and should remain so. Races do not exist. There is only one race: the human race. Science has proved it. Everybody knows this.

Well, I really can’t believe so. Bodies actually speak louder than words. I personally feel and know I’m Black. As many others do.

I know I am Black when: I cross any border in any airport or train station, in any encounter with the police, in any university (I am a professor…), on national television and radio, particularly when the security at a media outlet doubts my status as guest and can only imagine me as being part of the audience, not the actual show. I know I’m Black when in supposedly safe academic circles and colleagues can publicly call me Mamadou instead of Maboula. They are specialists of Negritude and cannot deal with a real-life Black body. I know I’m Black in certain restaurants and clubs or when looking for an apartment or a job.

Blackness is French. Blackness is an experience.

I am an intersectional feminist Black cisgender woman. As such, I fully support the individual and collectives toiling in this sea of racial denial to offer alternative, more inclusive political alternatives, and artistic productions widening and bettering the imaginary — ours and the rest of the country.

Most recently, this labor of love and justice has been undertaken by women including Rokhaya Diallo (journalist and activist), Mame-Fatou Niang (scholar), Leonora Miano (author), Amandine Gay (Afro Feminist and filmmaker), Josza Ajembe (filmmaker), Alice Diop (filmmaker), the Mwasi Afro Feminist Collective, Houria Bouteldja (activist and writer), Assa Traoré (activist), or the Collective “Noire N’est Pas Mon Métier”, Cases Rebelles (Pan Afro Revolutionaries), and Amal Bentounsi (activist). Obviously, this list cannot be exhaustive as so much is going on right now. These are busy, interesting times.

But this is not enough. Knowing and understanding myself as a Black woman logically implies that white people do exist. As an illustration, on the eve of a potential World Cup win for the national French soccer team, I can clearly see that Olivier Giroud is a white man fully benefitting from his white privilege as no other human being on this earth has ever been granted so many chances in light of such glaring incompetence. Still, I cheer: “Go Les Bleus!” No, scratch that: Go, Les Noirs! Because you can be Black and French. Because France failed to materialize the Black-Blanc-Beurs fiction it had created in 1998, two decades later, the country will now have to deal with a Wakanda narrative. France created it. France now needs to be prepared to deal with it. So be it. So it is.

Maboula Soumahoro is a Franco-Ivorian scholar and Associate Professor at the University of Tours. She is the president of Black History Month association in France.

Photo Credit: Leeroy Jason IG: @therealclickclak for AFROPUNK