Mas como não tive chance de ter estudado em colégio legal
Muitos me chamam pivete
Mas poucos me deram um apoio moral
Se eu pudesse eu não seria um problema social
- “Problema Social” by Seu Jorge
The multiplicity of existence can only reveal itself when inhabiting different spaces, be it in the social fabric of the built environment, or the imaginaries of the mind. Such multiplicity became apparent to me in the streets of Paris, where I was rendered invisible to the average Parisian eye. Can I actually say I am invisible? I should instead state that I am accepted in their society for I am not often stared at and I am never questioned for being in the spaces I am in. I am frequently asked where I am from, or what brings me to Paris, but never have I been meant to feel as though I do not belong. This differs greatly to my contested experience in Madrid, where every wandering eye that pierced through windows and crowds questioned my existence, hoping to erase my brown existence from their society. In contrast, my experience in Paris can be compared to that of New York, I can exist as I wish and just fade into the crowds of people that are more concerned about themselves than they are concerned with questioning the other.
I suppose you would question why I would want to live geographically distant from New York if in both cities I could exist as I wanted. The reason is the atmospheric sense of freedom that encaptures you as you walk through the paved streets of Paris. Freedom, I came to realize in Paris, is something that seems aloof and can only exist the mere imaginaries of the black and latino population in New York. Through reading the works of black expatriates in Paris such as Richard Wright, one would see that Paris is a black man’s North because one exists in freedom, a freedom that is obscure, yet more tangible than it could be in the United States, the “land of the free.” In I Chose Exile Richard Wright proclaims, “I love freedom, and I tell you frankly that there is more freedom in one square block of Paris than there is in the entire United States of America […] I am not trying to persuade other Negroes to live abroad. My decision is predicated upon this simple fact: I need freedom” (Wright, 1). In other words, Wright felt the need to escape racial pressure of the United States. In France there is no gun violence, no racialized ghettoization, no lack of social welfare programs, no hyper police vigilance. Without knowing what I was going to encounter, I left Harlem, Dyckman and the Bronx (the neighborhoods that had shaped my upbringing) only to find the freedom I had not realized I was looking for.
My first trip to Paris I felt as though my blackness was actually desired in the society. This was evident in the street style that paid homage to that of all corners of New York, Harlem, the Bronx or SoHo. The French youth embodied the street swagger of those across the Atlantic, but they were of course still very much French. Appreciation for black culture was also apparent in the music. Jazz was brought to the French by the black American troops that fought along the French during the world war that reshaped and renegotiated global cultures and international relations. Today jazz is just as part of French culture as anything considerably deemed French (read: baguettes, museums, the right to protest, and free education and health care). Jazz is played in cafes or the Franprix supermarket just as American hip-hop, rap and trap are played in all the clubs mean to attract a young and engaging crowd. The appreciation for blackness in France manifests itself in plusier forms and its been revealed to me as if through a slow unrolling of a script, meant to be filtered in increments so that the existence of blackness can be properly
digested and understood.
My lived experience in Paris has however left me in polarizing odds concerning my incessant need to be an activist under an all black agenda. Let’s consider France’s politics of assimilation. Anyone can be French as long as they adhere to the French values of secularism, liberty, equality and brotherhood (liberté égalité et fraternité). Diverse friend groups dominate cafes, malls, parks, clubs, and the strips along La Seine river. Interracial couples are in large quantities, and it is not questioned the ways in which it would be in the States. How can I fight for the inclusion of black people in Paris, if they seem to be just as integral to the social fabric as Hugo, Roseau, de Beauvoir and Sartre? When the existence of black people is not contested, how then can I import my radical notions of racial politics to France?
When in Paris, I often wonder if I should have studied something more practical like civic engineering, physics, or chemistry, all of which I have the foundation for but never perused. But how could I pursue these subjects when I felt a driving force to nourish my mind with a global understanding of the many ways in which colonial legacies have written out the histories of their subjects and expected them to be submissive, subservient second-class citizens (if they had citizen status at all).
As part of the transcultural-dialogue that occurs when one is part of the diaspora, I wake up every morning affirmed by my blackness. My academic works have been purposed to uncover the nuances of black identity and shed awareness of the socio-political dynamics that continue to oppress blacks and Latinos in the United States. The forms of marginalization and oppression are written in the veins of the leaves of the sycamore trees of the south, written in the history textbooks of public schools that seldom represent the narratives of non-whites, written in the statistics of who populates the prison system and who populates a college classroom. These are some of the tangible proofs that have motivated me to continue to learn about the black diaspora and to use my passion for writing for a purpose, black liberation. However, chaque fois that I am Paris, I ask myself, why work so hard to deteriorate my weary soul that is seldom listened to, when in Paris I can just reinvent myself and appeal to those negrophiliacs? My efforts to enlighten even my own people began to feel futile, unwarranted, I began to feel like a rebel without a cause, a rebel without a platform, a rebel with no audience.
As I sat down to write this, the Brazilian artist Seu Jorge sings “Se eu pudesse eu não seria um problema social,” (If I could, then it would not be a social problem). And so I thought to myself the most obvious, I would not need to come to Paris if I could just exist unencumbered by my social class or my perceived racial background (as the one drop rule has determined me to be black before I could even understand what being treated as other meant).
In France my liberty to navigate as a person before my race allows me to have the peace of mind necessary to engage in theory and devote time to analyze my lived experiences with care and integrity. Might I be able to experience this level of freedom because my skin color is more palatable to the French? I am drawn to this question because of France’s obsession not only with black American culture, but with seemingly mixed race/ lighter skin people. I am drawn to this question because of my racial background, which has always been an internal struggle. I cannot think about my skin color without thinking about the one drop rule, I cannot think about the one drop rule without thinking about my interacial parents, and I cannot think about them without thinking about the colonial history of the Dominican Republic. I cannot think about the colonial history of the Dominican Republic without acknowledging France as having been one of the leading colonial powers. Why then would former subjects of the French colonial regime express different sentiments to the global north metropole than a black-identifying American?
“France Degage!”
Translation: “France, get out!”
Dakar, Senegal
June, 2018
