Riots in Paris, Cont’d

November 15th, 2005 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Megan, who I mentioned in my earlier post about the riots in Paris, left an interesting comment about them. Here’s what she had to say:

The riots are a very interesting subject. Although, I am not in the area where the riots are happening…Parisians talk about the riots all the time. Basically, the issue is that the ghettos of Paris are found in the suburbs (whereas in the US the ghettos are usually in the inner city). The racially focused ghettos are getting pushed out of Paris and into the suburbs.

Recently, an important French Minister made a very nasty remark about these “groups” in the suburbs…This fueled with the terrible death of two teenagers being chased by police in the suburbs has caused a massive snowball affect in many suburbs all over France…and even all over Europe.

One huge difference between American thinking and European thinking is that Americans tend to talk more about racial differences. Issues like racial inequalities, college entrance issues with race, diversity in the schools/workplaces are commonly discussed. Now, there are pros and cons to this.

Well, in France NO ONE talks about race. It is like this huge elephant in the room that no one wants to point out. Well, there are exterior pros to this…France appears to be more accepting, not making issue of the race factor. Well, the second a race factor is brought up (like when the Minister made his comment) all h*ll breaks lose. The French racial minorities have all this burning anger inside of them…and they need a venue to vent this.

In the US, it seems that we over-analyze and over-debate the race issue…maybe a good open communication is a positive thing.

Don’t worry, she is okay. She’s living and going to school in the city and not the suburbs. For a while, though, I was a bit worried.