France Bashing In The Times

The Times engages in some gratuitous France bashing, and does not even hide it behind its Great Select Wall:

French Lesson: Taunts on Race Can Boomerang

 

By JOHN TAGLIABUE

 

PARIS, Sept. 20 - The French news media were captivated by Hurricane Katrina, pointing out how the American government's faltering response brought into plain view the sad lot of black Americans. But this time the French, who have long criticized America's racism, could not overlook the parallels at home.

"It is true that the devastations of Katrina have cruelly shed light on the wounds of America, ghettoization, poverty, criminality, racial and territorial tensions," Le Figaro, the conservative daily, said in an editorial on Sept. 8. "In France, those in disagreement ran to pelt the 'American model' and the neoconservative president. But have they just looked at the state of their own country?"

Only four days before, a fire had swept an apartment in south Paris, killing 12 people, most of them black. And just days before that, 17 black people died in a single blaze. Since April, 48 people, most of them children and all of them black, have died in four separate fires in Paris.

In neighborhoods like Château Rouge, filled with the hundreds of thousands of nonwhite immigrants, some Arabs but mainly blacks, whom France has absorbed over the years from former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, you feel the anger.

"It could be a coincidence," said Sissouo Cheickh, bitterly, "but one question the French have to answer is: of 48 people who died, why were 48 black?"

 

It turns out that race is not a problem in France, but not for quite the reason one might expect:

But French insistence on the equality of man leaves them in a bind, their black critics say, perpetuating the fiction of a society without minorities.

The census in France does not list people by race. Hence, while blacks are thought to number about 1.5 million, of a total population of 59 million, no one really knows the exact number, which is estimated to be far higher.

A color blind census?  Maybe John Kerry, Francophile, could have picked up some right-wing votes with that proposal.  Of course, denial has consequences:

The European Union finances programs for minorities but not in France, because of its refusal to recognize minorities.

Well, how are "they" doing?

There are virtually no black people in corporate France, and blacks have almost no political representation. No black person sits in the National Assembly or in a regional parliament, and only a smattering are found in city councils....

So, today, blacks are not much on the French agenda. After the recent fires, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed a program of affirmative action and a requirement that résumés conceal a person's ethnic or racial identity. But the rest of the cabinet, including the minister for equal opportunity, rejected the ideas, saying they offended the fundamental principle of equality.

France - the progressive dream-state.

Comments

[beloml]

And of the 35,000 people who were killed in the heat wave of '04, why were nearly 35,000 of them elderly victims of neglect?

[Toby Petzold]

Well, I heard it was about 15,000 who died in and around Paris in the summer heatwave of 2003, but who's counting?

P.S. Go away, Rita.

[Jim E.]

I'm kinda wondering why you don't ever criticize American conservatives on the issue of race. All you do is present tired critiques of the NY Times (even when you agree with them) along with the obligatory mention -- and mocking -- of a prominent Dem who is in no way whatsoever related to the excerpted story.

Why not make your own case for affirmative action and race-based census results? Why won't you take on the folks at The Corner, or Thomas Sowell, or Ward Connerly, or, you know, the Republican party -- all the folks that would LOVE to follow France's system?

Finally, I don't understand this line: "It turns out that race is not a problem in France." Sarcasm?

[kim]

Or you know, Republicans like Condi Rice. Blah, blah, blah.

Liberals' closet racism roars out viciously whenever a black person escapes their dependency plantation.

And my how white Kenye West is. Not knocking his musicality, mind you.
=======================

[Syl]

Well, I for one, really believe affirmative action had its place. I think it was useful and, yes, necessary, even though unfair to others. It wasn't to right a wrong, it was to make the mix more equitable 'cause it sure wasn't happening on its own.

I think it served its purpose and should end.

But the supremes said [how many?] more years. I think we can live with that.

Kind of like with the S&L's discussed in another thread. To fix something, sometimes you have to break something else temporarily.

It's the 'temporarily' part that some people don't understand.

[Mark Amerman]

Affirmative action will never end. Every election the number of
people who benefit from it gets larger and those who are denied
jobs and educational opportunities because they are white and
or especially white and male get fewer. This is a politically
driven process and if preferential treatment of some because of
the color of their skin and/or sex can't be done away with now, what
in the world makes people think it will be done away with thirty
years from now when the political odds will have shifted even
more radically against those who are being discriminated against?

French opposition to institutional racism is one of the things
France is doing right. I applaud them. On the other hand, one
of the things wrong with France is that it's anti-business and
worships the state. Among other things it's very difficult for
a french business to fire anyone. This creates an environment where
companies hire people only as an act of desperation.

Supposedly France has an unemployment rate of something like
10 percent. Triple that and we'd be closer to the truth. France
has more and more ghettos full of non-white immigrant children
who can't get reasonable jobs. If you're young, college-educated,
and the son of thousands of generations of frenchman, and still can't
get a job (and that's a common circumstance), what do you are think
are the chances if you're the child of black immigrants?

What do you think are your chances if you come from a neighborhood
that has an awesomely horrible reputation, where most people
are on welfare, where drug use is rampant, where identity is
wrapped in anti-frenchness, and educational achievement (and those
who achieve in general) are despised?

Some people will look at this situation and imagine affirmative
action would somehow improve it. Balony, it would only be rearrange
the faces. France already has too many people with cushy lifetime
government jobs who practically speaking are wasted and produce
nothing their fellow citizens need or want. That's a good part of the
reason France is in this mess.

Making more such would only deepen the problem.

What France needs (and is unlikely to get) is a radical free-market
expansion. Even then it would be profoundly painful.

[TM]

I'm kinda wondering why you don't ever criticize American conservatives on the issue of race.

Gee,there is a story that gets no coverage at all - I could really carve out anew direction with that one.

Personally, I am kind of wondering why there are only 24 hours in a day...

The "race is not a problem" was sarcasm - since they don't even compile basic census data to see whether blacks in France are disproportionately poor, or less educated, or anything else, it may be harder for them to have a sensible national conversation about this.

Not that the data collection is a pre-requisite, of course, but the lack of data is surely a roadblock.

[Steve]

They say you shouldn't wake a sleep-walker, he may strike out at you. In France's case, we have to wake her, 'cuz she's punching us in her sleep.

We removed all sharp objects from her reach, duct-taped her bed pan to her side, and left the open jar of Vicks near her drooling cake-hole, but her kicking and flailing is becoming too dangerous for her nurses to condone any further.
-Steve

[POUNCER]

Syl sez: "Kind of like with the S&L's discussed in another thread. To fix something, sometimes you have to break something else temporarily. It's the 'temporarily' part that some people don't understand."

Ah. So it's perfectly okay to suspend habeus corpus and maybe intern whole ethnic groups and confiscate their private property -- temporarily? Can't make an omelet without -- temporarily -- breaking the egg?

Y'know as a quasi- and lower-case-"l" libertarian I sort of think that since all government action is intrinsically evil that there is some philosophical merit, (if only the merit of consistancy) in that position. Sometimes it may be necessary to do a little evil in order to contain or prevent a greater evil. I understand that notion and agree with it.

Where I balk is at the proposition that therefore ANY evil in ANY degree, actualized, by our government (or of a majority of society) is therefore better and permissible in lieu of the forecast and theoretical evil being, supposedly, prevented. Nationwide racial hiring quotas are better than pockets of residual racism or sexism in a few backward Southern counties or peculiar and antique institutions (like the Augusta Golf Club)? REALLY?

Surely the test is not merely the duration of the self-imposed evil but the overall scope. The less intrusive the better. The shorter the better. The least-evil, the better. The more specific and localized, the better.

[Jim E.]

"Gee,there is a story that gets no coverage at all - I could really carve out anew direction with that one."

Well, since you're a right-winger, yes, you WOULD be carving out a new direction by advocating more race-based policies and more race-sensitive news coverage.

Instead, you choose to criticize the Times for writing a story you seem to approve of and push the non-relevant right-wing caricature of Kerry as a Frenchman. France, in this instance, exemplifies the wet-dream of American conservatives, yet you manage to mock liberals ("France - the progressive dream-state") despite knowing full well that American liberals would NOT generally endorse France's approach, while conservatives would.

So I take it you, a right-winger, think your anti-Times and anti-Dem obsession is somehow original??

[Bostonian]

Jim E.,
You apparently assume that the Right is racist or has instituted policies that adversely affect minorities and so has something to apologize for.

That's the conventional wisdom but it is complete, utter horsehockey.

If you look at the actual outcomes, the policies of the Left, which are *intended* to help minorities, instead affect minorities adversely. Before the creation of so-called progressive programs four decades ago, the economic & social status of minorities had been steadily increasing for decades. That progress stopped with the introduction of affirmative action programs.

Moreover, affirmative action programs tend to exacerbate race relations. This is the pattern in AA programs in many nations, including the US, Malaysia, and India.

But instead of talking about the results of these programs, the Left prefers to pretend (or believe) that anyone opposed to them must necessarily be a racist. This is a logical fallacy and an extremely unconstructive attitude.

[Lurking Observer]

Yes, Tom Maguire, I mean, just who the heck do you think you are?

Why are you writing on anything that you, from your perspective, when you should basically write on what Jim E. thinks is important, based on what Jim E. think is the right/proper perspective??

Of course, Jim E could probably create his own blog, and write about things (be it the need for more affirmative actions, quotas, and reparations, based on conservative thinking, to why liberals should embrace privatization), but that'd be too hard.

Better to demand that others' blogs be his own forum.

[Jim E.]

Um, people, TM -- not me -- is the one apparently advocating MORE race-based policies and race-sensitive reporting. For instance, last week he criticized the NY Times for not better exploring the obvious racial aspects about a specific New Orleans controversy -- when it turns out the racial aspect was not at all obvious, as TM later, though opaquely, conceded. That TM would criticize the Times for consistently not dwelling enough on race is ludicrous, as I pointed out on that thread.

And take the main post to this thread: he happily mocks France, the NY Times, and John Kerry (all supposedly "liberal" targets), but his actual criticism is to point out how France's attempts to officially ignore race haven't exactly worked.

TM's supposed perspective is so overwhelmed by his bizarre anti-Times and anti-Dem obsession (and poor writing), that his readers think I'm the one arguing for more racial sensitivity, when, in fact, it's TM. Then again, his comprehension-imnpaired loyalist readers wrongly think I'm a pro-affirmative action leftist who has somehow written that Republicans are racist, so not all the blame for the misunderstanding can be laid at TM's feet. But TM's own readers are having a tough time keeping track of what the hell his points are.

[Cecil Turner]

"Um, people, TM -- not me -- is the one apparently advocating MORE race-based policies and race-sensitive reporting."

In that case, what was the point of this non-sequitur:

"Well, since you're a right-winger, yes, you WOULD be carving out a new direction by advocating more race-based policies and more race-sensitive news coverage." ?

As to the earlier pinging on the Times's coverage, I think the point was that the Times was sensitive to the point of being biased. And in particular, its crime reporting goes to great lengths to protect its readership from insensitive issues (possibly to avoid discussion of why one eighth of the US population commits one half of the murders).

"Then again, his comprehension-imnpaired loyalist readers wrongly think I'm a pro-affirmative action leftist who has somehow written that Republicans are racist . . ."

If not, what's the point of asking "why you don't ever criticize American conservatives on the issue of race"? Obviously you think criticism is warranted . . . about what? (I'd also note you're interchanging "conservative" with "Republican," which fairly begs for a rejoinder featuring a certain prominent former organizer for the KKK.)

[Knemon]

"France, the NY Times, and John Kerry (all supposedly "liberal" targets)"

Okay, I'll bite - to which of these three would you not apply that label?

[Jim E.]

Cecil,
I don't understand your first question. But to clarify, I was trying to say that it would be unusual for a conservative (TM) to advocate for more race-based stuff. He WOULD be carving out a new direction of sorts, which seems to matter to him. (I was responding to his previous response -- see above.) Continuing with his mocking of the Times and Kerry,on the other hand, is not unusual (for conservatives or liberals). For him to carve out this new direction, though, he'd by definition, have to confront and critique conservatives, who are less receptive to all this race talk.

"As to the earlier pinging on the Times's coverage, I think the point was that the Times was sensitive to the point of being biased."

Perhaps with regard to crime coverage, but then again, TM never presented anything to bolster his point. The paltry example he did provide didn't distinguish the Times from the righty NY Post. Besides, I was referring to the Gretna police thing -- TMs implication was that the Times was running away for the implication that the white police force was disallowing black evacuees from crossing the bridge. How the heck would TM's original suspicions of the Times coverage (covering up a racist police force) square with the "sensitivity" you allege on the crime matter? Covering up for racists is not sensitive.

"If not, what's the point of asking 'why you don't ever criticize American conservatives on the issue of race'? Obviously you think criticism is warranted . . . about what?"

I'm not sure criticism is warrented at all. Seriously. But TM clearly does. What I think is that it's really lame for TM to criticize liberals, progressives, and John Kerry in an article that shows the shortcomings of France's conservative-ish attempts at being color-blind.

I'm seeing a trend that TM desires more discussion of racial issues and more acknowledgement that race matters. Fine. But if that's his view*, he needs to confront conservatives, not liberals, since conservatives are typically the ones most desireous of diminishing, rather than increasing, talk of race.

*Quite frankly, I'm not entirely clear on what TM's view is on racial issues, other than that to only blame liberals, Dems, and NYTimes -- even in instances where liberals, Dems, and the NY Times have nothing to do with the issue under discussion.

[Jim E.]

Knenom wrote: "Okay, I'll bite - to which of these three would you not apply that label?"

In the context of this thread, the label doesn't apply to any of them.

[Cecil Turner]

"How the heck would TM's original suspicions of the Times coverage (covering up a racist police force) square with the "sensitivity" you allege on the crime matter?"

The same way leaving out the race of perpetrators of crime does . . . by avoiding the subject. (BTW, ignoring allegations of racism is not the same as "covering up a racist police force," especially if the allegations weren't very credible on their face.) But in both cases, the issue is that news reports should report the news.

"I'm not sure criticism is warrented at all. Seriously."

If your question about criticizing conservatives was meant to imply that the criticism of liberals was off-base, it wasn't clear. (Nor was the subsequent bit about breaking new ground.) It certainly seemed to imply that criticism was warranted.

"in an article that shows the shortcomings of France's conservative-ish attempts at being color-blind"

I think it was more pointing up the hypocrisy of a claim to be color-blind, whilst maintaining a socialist state with an uncounted underclass. Personally, I think equal treatment under the law is a laudable goal . . . but it certainly isn't a reality in France.

[Jim E.]

Cecil accused the Times of "avoiding the subject."

See, this is what I don't get. First, you (Cecil) wrote that the Times was "biased" in terms of race coverage. Now you accuse them of actively avoiding the subject across the board. Well, which is it?

The Times won a Pulitzer about 4 or 5 years ago for set of stories about race that ran for SIX weeks on their front page. (The NY Times front page is valuable journalism real estate.) I recall them being ripped (by conservatives) for their race-based obsession. They published the stories into a book. What other newspaper has done that?

The Times botches stories all of the time (and make subjective decisions on how much ink to devote to specific events) but it's extraordinary -- and just plain wrong -- to make a general accusation that they avoid the subject of race. Especially in the context of a thread about a NY Times article about, um, race.

Of course, I suppose one can put on their tin foil hat and read today's Times story as being liberally biased. That is, the Times wrote a France bashing story in order to caution against American conservative efforts to abolish race & ethnic based census results. Damn those brain-washing Times editors!

[Cecil Turner]

"Well, which is it?"

Both, actually. It's called "bias by omission" (which usually consists of covering only one side of a story, but also includes active avoidance of subjects which tend to disturb one's world view).

"Of course, I suppose one can put on their tin foil hat and read today's Times story as being liberally biased."

Actually, I read this post as ill-disguised schaadenfreude over the Times's France-bashing . . . not an argument that it was unfair. You brought up the previous Times criticism (which also seems on the mark to me, but then it would).

[Joe Mealyus]

Jim E.: "All you do is present tired critiques of the NY Times (even when you agree with them) along with the obligatory mention -- and mocking -- of a prominent Dem who is in no way whatsoever related to the excerpted story."

He says this like it's a bad thing.

The day those tired critiques and obligatory mockings stop coming, I'm cancelling my subscription.

[Mark Amerman]

Jim E said,

"What I think is that it's really lame for TM to criticize liberals,
progressives, and John Kerry in an article that shows the shortcomings
of France's conservative-ish attempts at being color-blind."

TM's essay can be read at least two different ways. First-off as
a mocking of France for not using affirmative action to address the
problems disproportionately concentrated in certain ethnic groups.
A person who believes that affirmative action is a good and noble
thing is highly likely to come away with such a reading and in fact
would have difficulty perceiving it in any other way. If TM does
believe that France should be using affirmative action to address
the problems of blacks (and arabs) in france, then this first
reading is what TM meant to convey (mostly) and Jim E's criticism
above would be on target.

The second reading though would take the essay as a criticism of
France not for not using affirmative action -- but for being untrue
to it's own principles and in a way that happens to be of advantage
to the most prominent advocates of those principles. To make this
criticism clearer let's imagine that the french are marxists.
A marxist believes that individualism is evil, that the basic
unit of man should be (and is) the group and further that goodness
and badness attaches to groups.

Thus the marxist can advocate killing blacks because they are
black or giving jobs and money to blacks because they are black
but what marxism is not about is concern for the person who is
prejudged by the color of his skin. Now I'm not saying a marxist
has to sort people by skin color, but people do have to be sorted
into groups, the group criterion could be 'unselfish' versus
'selfish' or 'selfless instance of the collective' versus 'individual.'
But there is certainly no ideological block to sorting people by
color, and in fact the marxist usually does.

Thus we will often hear marxists call someone 'racist' and mean
by that that they are white and that white people are evil. A
good example of that would be someone saying "blacks cannot
be racist" which translates directly to "whites are evil."

Now getting back to the essay, I don't know which meaning TM intended,
whether he was advocating affirmative action in france and pointing out
an example of hypocracy or whether he was not actually advocating
affirmative action, but instead simply asserting hypocracy in the
french for not doing so.

The problem I have with the second reading, assuming that is what
TM meant, is that I'm not sure it's fair to france to claim that
individualism is not a french ideal. I think in fact it is, even
though there are many groups in france opposed to individualism.

I also wonder that even if individualism were not an ideal in
france whether it is truely incongruent for blacks to not be the
beneficiaries of affirmative action. We should expect someone
to be the beneficiary of such, but it need not be black people.

Individualism and opposition to racism go hand and hand. Now
I'm not saying that individualists are not racists, in fact
I think all people are racists and categorical thinking is part
of the human condition. But rather that it is easy to persuade an
individualist that racism is wrong and to end up with a person that
strives not to be racist.

On the other hand, marxism and racism go hand in hand. A marxist
has difficulty even hearing the argument against racism, which carries
with it the presupposition that individualism is a virtue. The marxist
transforms 'racism' into a rallying call for racial hatred.

[Lesley]

Tom's "poor writing"?

Wow.

Now I understand. Silly me.

The reason Tom gets linked all over the blogosphere is due to the intelligence and cleverness of his commenters! That's what the links REALLY mean: "Hey Blogosphere!!! Ignore anything Tom says because of his bigotry and poor writing skills but be darn sure to read his extraordinary commenters who are the true genuises of his blog."

Heh.

[sophy]

Welcome to our game world, my friend asks me to buy some knight noah .