Black France / France Noire: The History and Politics of Blackness

341 Pages·2012·1.01 MB·English

by  Trica Danielle Keaton

Black France / France Noire

Black France / France Noire
The History and Politics of Blackness
trica danielle keaton,
t. denean sharpley-whiting,
and tyler stovall,
editors
Duke University Press
durham ∏ london
2012
∫ 2012 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper $
Designed by C. H. Westmoreland
Typeset in Arno Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
For Dorothy J. Holman,
with all love and appreciation
In memoriam:
Aimé Césaire, Michel Fabre, Ousmane Sembène,
Édouard Glissant

Contents
foreword
Black . . . A Color? A Kaleidoscope!
Christiane Taubira ix
acknowledgments xv
introduction
Blackness Matters, Blackness Made to Matter
Trica Danielle Keaton, Tracy Sharpley-Whiting,
and Tyler Stovall 1
part i
Theorizing and Narrating Blackness and Belonging
Black France: Myth or Reality?
Problems of Identity and Identification
Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi 17
The Lost Territories of the Republic: Historical Narratives and
the Recomposition of French Citizenship
Mamadou Diouf 32
Eurafrique as the Future Past of ‘‘Black France’’: Sarkozy’s
Temporal Confusion and Senghor’s Postwar Vision
Gary Wilder 57
Letter to France
Alain Mabanckou 88
French Impressionism
Jake Lamar 96
part ii
The Politics of Blackness—Politicizing Blackness
The Invention of Blacks in France
Patrick Lozès 103
viii contents
Immigration and National Identity in France
Dominic Thomas 110
‘‘Black France’’ and the National Identity Debate:
How Best to Be Black and French?
Fred Constant 123
Paint It ‘‘Black’’:
How Africans and Afro-Caribbeans Became ‘‘Black’’ in France
Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga 145
The ‘‘Question of Blackness’’ and the Memory of Slavery: Invisibility and
Forgetting as Voluntary Fire and Some Pyromaniac Firefighters
Michel Giraud 173
part iii
Black Paris—Black France
The New Negro in Paris:
Booker T. Washington, the New Negro, and the Paris Exposition of 1900
Marcus Bruce 207
The Militant Black Men of Marseille and Paris, 1927–1937
Jennifer Boittin 221
Reflections on the Future of Black France:
Josephine Baker’s Vision of a Global Village
Bennetta Jules-Rosette 247
Site-ing Black Paris: Discourses and the Making of Identities
Arlette Frund 269
Coda: Black Identity in France in a European Perspective
Allison Blakely 287
about the contributors 307
index 311
Foreword
Black . . . A Color? A Kaleidoscope!
christiane taubira, member of the french national
assembly, deputy from guiana
What must we remind the world?
That we are its majority.
That we resemble those who populate every continent.
That with a joyous deceit, we know how to take on the guise—even
to the extent of averting our eyes—of those who could be born any-
where in the world. This extraordinary gift terrorized the inventors of
the infamous one-drop rule.
However, it was and still is nothing more than a demonstration that
we, Black women, are alchemists, forever possessing the secret of the
unexpected, capable of transforming the sordid sap of rape into beauty
and grace. Purifying improbable love. Ennobling the fleeting or subter-
ranean passions resisted by the plantation slaveowner. Offering thus to
the world a diversity that men could never have imagined. And, in so
doing, fleeing the madness of this world of indescribable violence.
What is left to say to the world?
That we are not dupes. Neither are we naive. Nor are we stupefied
by the absurdities of a religious indoctrination embroidered with do-
cility, submission, resignation; absolving servitude; forgiving of subor-
dination; promising heaven as recompense. That we know what was
the vicious circle of the collusion of the sword, the Church, the scale,
and the scourge, at the service of the most common and widespread of
cupidities.
That if we have resorted to rancor, resentment, revenge, retribution,
it is neither through candor nor holiness, neither with joy, nor without