French Riots #4: Racism, or...?

CNN says: "Racism and widespread joblessness among minorities have left young people of the slums languishing in hopelessness and despair, creating the tinderbox of anger that has exploded."

Can I just ask, how useful is it to constantly repeat the message that racism is the root of this problem? How does saying that empower these kids, about half of whom are unemployed, at all? The subtext of that message is, "Your problems are the fault of people over whom you have no control at all." You might as well shrug and say, "Sucks to be you. Better luck next life." Of course racism is part of the problem. But it's the part over which those kids have zero control: how is some ghetto teenager supposed to overcome Racism with a capital R? How do you combat an abstract noun? How do you change the minds of Them, whoever They are, whose racism is keeping you down?

The problem is much more complex than racism, and parts of the problem are things over which these kids do have control. It's a lot more empowering to point to the things they can actually change, isn't it? Some people are plain and simply racist, but most white people who react badly to these ghetto kids are not reacting to their skin color/ethnicity: they're reacting to their behavior and presentation. To put it simply, on a good day these kids act inappropriately and look totally unprofessional; on a bad day they are flat-out scary. As stated in French Riots #3, they live in a milieu where it is almost impossible to learn the language, dress and behavior of the middle class. How can they assimilate without any models? And how can they even want to assimilate if they're constantly fed the message that the white middle class is racist, is Keeping Them Down, is a united front purposely blocking their way forward in life? The problem has more to do with class and culture than with skin color. If you look, act and talk like a ghetto troublemaker, your own father might hesitate to offer you a job.

But "troublemaker" is too mild a word. To walk down the street in Saint-Denis is to be the target of a barrage of insults and sexual comments from little posses of Arab boys. Why? Because I'm a woman who dresses western. I'm white, but that's not the key: Arab girls who dress western get harassed too, or, on a bad day, gang raped--this problem hit the headlines in 2001, when eleven teenage boys in Saint-Denis raped a 14-year-old girl and she went to the police. Normally they don't go to the police, because bringing charges means your family gets threatened so severely that they end up having to move, and, thanks to certain inhumanities that are part and parcel of that culture, sometimes the father and brothers of the victim blame her. For more on how wonderful it's not to be a woman in the Arab underclass in France, read up on Ni Putes Ni Soumises (neither whores nor submissive), an organization of French-Arab women. Being a woman in one of these neighborhoods that are currently in flames is so awful that, forgive me, but I can't find a hell of a lot of sympathy for the suffering of the boys who are burning cars--they're the ones who make life so bad for everyone else.

And even if I can sympathize, what's the point? I'd have to be on crack to say their suffering justifies what they're doing--namely, destroying people's property, hurting people, and wrecking the few businesses left in their neighborhood. They're only reinforcing the racism of racists and the fear of non-racist whites. They're making the problem worse. That's part of the reason most French minorities and immigrants are against what they're doing. Muslim groups all over France immediately and vocally opposed the rioters; their opposition is probably based in part on the feeling that, "You idiots, we've worked so hard for the progress we've made, now you're setting us back!" A similar feeling probably animates Nicolas Sarkozy, the Minister of the Interior whose somewhat inflammatory remarks made the rioters furious: his mom was Jewish and his dad, a Hungarian immigrant, told him to forget about becoming a politician because people wouldn't elect someone with a foreign surname. Immigrants who've worked their asses off hate what's going on.

But back to my point: part of the problem is under their control. If they could find it in themselves to alter what they wear and how they behave, so they created a first impression closer to "enterprising young man" than "potential criminal," it would go a long way towards improving their situation in life. If you doubt that, just ask Marva Collins. She's the African-American educator, profiled at least twice on 60 Minutes, who has spent the last 30 years turning kids from the worst Chicago ghettos into doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc. Her model has been exported to a few other cities, with charter schools opening to implement her teaching methods. What does she do? In addition to teaching a fantastic, classics-based curriculum (these kids are reading Hamlet at age 12), she teaches them how to dress, speak and act middle class. French schools already have the rigorous curriculum down; I only wish they would add the social component.