(no subject)
Okay. This isn't exactly topical. Unfortunately, the ramblings of others have brought my level of frustration high enough to take valuable time from putting off end-of-semester projects in front of the television and devote it to addressing a topic many people couldn't care less about. Some people have decided to take the Paris riots as an opportunity to continue to French-bash, a practice I thought went out of vogue a couple of years ago.
France never dealt with its post-colonial tensions, and instead insisted that everything was hunky-dory, everybody was free, equal, and happy - we're talking serious denial issues, here. There's little to no sociological data based on a ethnicity or religion because it's considered 'offensive' to ask a person to define themselves as such. Sadly, this color-blindness doesn't extend to social attitudes or hiring practices - the North African and Arab population is discriminated against on a regular basis. Job applicants with non-French names are five times less likely to be called in for job interviews than people with French names of comparable skills. In a socialist-leaning system that is supposed to cater to the needs of all, and in a country that perpetually espouses equality, this has to be extremely frustrating.
On July 16, 1964, a white New York City officer shot and killed a black teenager. Demonstrators marched to the precinct headquarters and two days of rioting followed - the rioting spread to Rochester, Jersey City, and Philadelphia, and in the next year to Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Diego. Then Cleveland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Detroit, and Newark were affected. In the same years, college students were demonstrating against the Vietnam war.
To suggest that there's no significant reason for the rioting in Paris - and that the rioting has not stopped because the police force is ineffective (simply for being french) is infuriating. The riots in the United States and France point to deep underlying issues that affect a large disenfranchised population. That it culminated in weeks of widespread violence and arson is a tragedy, not a joke (and a poor one at that).
France never dealt with its post-colonial tensions, and instead insisted that everything was hunky-dory, everybody was free, equal, and happy - we're talking serious denial issues, here. There's little to no sociological data based on a ethnicity or religion because it's considered 'offensive' to ask a person to define themselves as such. Sadly, this color-blindness doesn't extend to social attitudes or hiring practices - the North African and Arab population is discriminated against on a regular basis. Job applicants with non-French names are five times less likely to be called in for job interviews than people with French names of comparable skills. In a socialist-leaning system that is supposed to cater to the needs of all, and in a country that perpetually espouses equality, this has to be extremely frustrating.
On July 16, 1964, a white New York City officer shot and killed a black teenager. Demonstrators marched to the precinct headquarters and two days of rioting followed - the rioting spread to Rochester, Jersey City, and Philadelphia, and in the next year to Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Diego. Then Cleveland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Detroit, and Newark were affected. In the same years, college students were demonstrating against the Vietnam war.
To suggest that there's no significant reason for the rioting in Paris - and that the rioting has not stopped because the police force is ineffective (simply for being french) is infuriating. The riots in the United States and France point to deep underlying issues that affect a large disenfranchised population. That it culminated in weeks of widespread violence and arson is a tragedy, not a joke (and a poor one at that).