Thousands are demanding justice after France’s minister for family,
children and women’s rights hurled a racist epithet against
African-Americans in an effort to denigrate Muslim women who wear
hijabs.
Laurence Rossignol made the comments on Thursday in an
interview
with RMC radio and BFM TV, during which she slammed retailers who
design products for Muslim women, such as hijabs, arguing that these
companies are “promoting the confinement of women’s bodies.”
When
the journalist pressed Rossignol, arguing that some women choose to wear
such items, the minister retorted: “Of course there are women who
choose it. There were American negroes who were in favor of slavery.”
The
French word that Rossignol chose to use, "nègres," is a particularly
offensive and outdated term with colonial undertones. It is equivalent
to the English word “negro,” and some argue it is as bad as the slur
“n*gger.” The French word contrasts with other terms that are considered
less offensive, such as “les noirs” and “les blacks.”
Rossignol’s
use of this word has historic significance in a country that saw the
birth of the mid-20th century “Négritude” movement, in which French
writers and artists of African descent such as Aimé Césaire culturally
reappropriated the term as an expression of identity and resistance.
Rossignol
later admitted in an interview with AFP that she had used offensive
language, stating: “I didn’t take into account the most widespread
perception [of the word]—that one doesn’t say negro even if it is
allowed in respect to slavery.”
But in in the same breath,
Rossingol dug in her heels, declaring, “Outside of this error of
language, I am not retracting a single word I said."
Rossignol’s comments instantly provoked uproar, with over 8,000 people signing an
online petition
demanding that the minister be “punished” for her racism. The statement
declares that that the minister’s words constitute “an insult to the
memory of millions of individuals, families and countries destroyed by
slavery and its consequences.”
“It is terrible to see that
persistent anti-black racism is used to justify and legitimize a
gendered Islamophobia,” the petition adds.
Interviewed from Paris
by AlterNet, Yasser Louati, spokesperson for the Collective Against
Islamophobia in France, said that “racism, especially Islamophobia, is
completely normal” in his country. This bigotry extends from the far
right as well as the supposed progressive wings of the government, he
argued, noting that Rossignol hails from the Socialist party.
“We
have to keep in mind that France is the laboratory of Islamophobia, just
like it was the laboratory of anti-Semitism in the 1930s,” Louati
continued. “When you have a country being turned into a police state to
justify mass surveillance and adopt the excesses of the U.S. Patriot
Act, the dehumanization of Muslims makes it possible to play around with
human rights and democracy.”
Note EU-Digest: Whatever the French Minister Laurence Rossignol might have said that did not sound appropriate to some, we must also understand and accept the fact, like it or not, that in Europe we believe in Democracy, which includes Freedom of Expression.
Laurence Rossignol should, therefore, certainly not be sacked.
The question which maybe should be asked instead is, when did Negro become a bad word, and if it’s such a bad word, why is it
used to describe organizations like the American based UNCF (United Negro College
Fund)?
Or why
does the NAACP in America still use "colored people" in the organization's name?
Should they change their name? Why is the C still allowed?
Recently US Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) apologized for his published comments
that President Barack Obama could become president because he was a“light skinned” African-American with “no Negro dialect.” This statement caused some to even seek Reid’s resignation.
In Portuguese, the word "Negro" is the correct term when referring to
the race, while calling somebody "Black", the color, would be considered
offensive most of the time.
Bottom line: Negro is not a "racist slur". "Nigger" is, but it isn't proscribed
anywhere in the world - except in the US by the New York City Council, which
passed a resolution against it in March 2007. All the resolution did was
revive what writer, journalist and commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates called,
writing in The New York Times, ('In Defense of a Loaded Word', 23
November 2013), "a fairly regular ritual debate over who gets to say
'nigger' and who does not".
Isn't it high time we put this issue to bed - after all, what's in a name, Black, Brown, Yellow, White, we are all part of one human race and when we bleed our blood is red. Aren't there far more "life and Death" issues in the world to worry about?
What we probably should get far more upset about is that the F word is now used in just about every situation, sentence and discussio, by the so-called millennials age group.
As to Sarah Lazare,who wrote the above article in Alternet, maybe she could be spending her time more productively if she wrote about some of the very serious racial inequalities and police brutality going on in the US.
Read more: French Minister Trashes Muslim Women With Anti-Black Slur: Will She Be Sacked? | Alternet
