Racial stereotypes threaten the French national ideal

Protests and the removal of statues of historical French figures to denounce «state racism.» Actresses speaking out against French cinema deemed “anti-Black.” While the concept of human races remains a subject of scientific debate, do these French citizens—who brandish their phenotype as a banner in the fight against racism—and these cries of outrage against a supposedly racist country signal the advent of a racialized society? 

Human races: a controversial concept with no real relevance to society

Scientists who oppose racial categorization will tell you that there are no genetic criteria in humans that allow for the establishment of a reproducible boundary between different human groups(1). According to other researchers, it is possible to establish a genetic classification of individuals that corresponds to their geographic origin(2). And after all, in medicine, we use the concept of «ethnic origin» to guide diagnostic testing or tailor certain treatments.

The United States doesn’t just flood the world with its language and arts; it also exports its vision of society. The racialist ideology from across the Atlantic is making its way into France

Human races or not, when it comes to the «Black race» and «Black culture,» we’re off topic: given that certain African populations are genetically closer to European populations than they are to other African populations, it’s hard to know what a «Black race» would actually entail. And if there are «Black cultures» that should be contextualized (to paraphrase Sartre, «Negritude» as the negation of the negation of the colonized Black person? African American culture as the negation of the negation of the Black slave?), it is difficult to determine what a «Black culture» common to all people with more or less dark skin tones around the world would be. The relevant question for people and the societies in which they intend to live together is not so much whether the existence of human races is scientifically proven, but whether the phenotypic differences we perceive—which might be called “racial representations”— shape our behaviors and mold our societies.

Combating Phenotype-Based Ethnocentrism

In the 2000s, a series of studies conducted in the United States revealed that white people showed greater activation in a region of the brain dedicated to detecting salient information in the environment (e.g., danger) when they perceived the face of a Black person compared to the face of a white person—even when that face was presented in a way that could not be consciously perceived. It was as if skin color were a cue that automatically triggered our surveillance system. However, subsequent studies have shown that context can cause people to overlook skin color. When play groups are created that mix Black and White participants, both White and Black participants activate this brain surveillance system more strongly when they see the faces of participants on the opposing team.  Similarly, when we are told an individual’s political affiliation, our brain’s tendency to categorize them based on skin color disappears in favor of their political affiliation.(3). When a sense of belonging to a group is fostered, this information becomes more relevant than skin color.

Ethnocentrism is a universal behavior that involves favoring individuals whom one considers to belong to one’s own group, a group defined by characteristics such as phenotype, language, and religion. In situations where resources are limited, ethnocentrism ensures that individuals continue to cooperate even at the expense of their own benefit.(4). The danger of ethnocentrism lies in its tendency to base the definition of a group primarily on a criterion that could be described as primitive and immutable: the phenotype. The French national ideal—this aspiration toward a community of individuals bound by culture beyond their phenotype or the geographic origin of their ancestry— appears to be a more effective strategy for maintaining bonds between individuals in the long term, regardless of economic conditions, than the multiculturalist model toward which our society is moving—all the more so given that the cultures involved are at odds over fundamental values, such as the importance placed on phenotype or religion.

Toward a Racialized Society 

In their «exorbitant privilege,» the United States does not merely flood the world with its language and arts; it also exports its conception of society. Can we draw a parallel between the institutionalized racial discrimination of the segregationist United States of the last century—and its consequences—and the discrimination complained of by certain French actresses? Fellini said he chose faces, not professional skills. Why are James Bond girls always women with perfect physiques, Hitchcock’s heroines always blonde and ethereal, and Spike Lee’s heroes always Black? The acting profession is cruel, but every director is free—until the dictatorship of affirmative action also invades the arts—to infuse his imagined world into society through the bodies and faces he wishes to glorify. Can we compare this to an American police force that kills twice as many African Americans as white Americans, according to a recent study (this study also shows that white Americans are twice as likely to be killed by the police as Asian Americans!)(5)  and a French police force that doesn’t dare to use its weapons, regularly insulted and humiliated—if not directly threatened by «carefully planned ambushes,» as Frédéric Ploquin’s investigation has shown?(6)

No, the French state is not racist. The ambition of the French nation—this community of individuals made free through education, equal under the law, united in brotherhood by shared values and a common purpose, and built upon a foundation that transcends blood ties—is to strive toward a community that is culturally homogeneous, not phenotypically so. Yet, the racialist ideology originating from across the Atlantic is making its way into France. It is gaining ground in the minds of a youth deprived of a national ideal (the transmission of culture undermined by a condescending or repentant elite: a censored national narrative, the French language mistreated, etc.) and seduced by African-American demands, which take on the appearance of a quixotic struggle on our soil. Meanwhile, an elite is shrewdly exploiting the importation of these North American ideological products to take its revenge on the white colonizer and reshape the country according to its inclusive ideal: more Black people on TV, more Black people in the National Assembly, more Black people in the collective imagination. The French dream of a nation—not post-racial (a term borrowed from the United States that implies «race» is or has been a variable in society), but non-racial (closer to the French model that denies «race»)— is now reduced to this half-hearted attempt—nipped in the bud—to transcend phenotypic divisions, a faltering will that bows its head in shame and repentance before this emerging model of a racialized society.

Aissa Maiga made headlines by counting the Black people in the audience at the 2020 César Awards, causing some discomfort © JP PARIENTE/SIPA
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