[REVIEW] The Pink and the Black
Mar. 19th, 2006 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrédéric Martel's The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968, translated and puiblished in the English language in 1999, is a decidedly interesting read. In his study of French GLBT communities--particularly the male ones--Martel examines in detail a fascinating history, from slowly fading repression in the 1960s to openness in new ghettos in the 1970s, and then from the mass death and emergent communial organization associated with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s to mainstreaming and normalization in the 1990s. There are some uniquely French peculiarities in Martel's story, which he does choose to begin in the immediate aftermath of the abortive revolution of May 1968, which inspired emergent activists like Guy Hocquenghem to embrace radical left-wing politics despite the homophobic hostility that was sadly typical of the Western Left in that time frame. Similarly, the PACS--the Pacte civil de solidarité, France's civil unions--takes on a greater importance and earlier in France than the same-sex marriage debate did in Canada.
By and large, the trajectory that The Pink and the Black describes is something that I recognized from my readings of Canadian GLBT history. This is why Martel's emphasis on the difference between the French and American models of minority assimilation, in his epilogue, was somewhat confusing. Briefly put, the French model of integration assimilates individuals but refuses to recognize group identities, stemming perhaps from what Noiriel described in The French Melting Pot as the relative prominence of the state in integration and the numerous problems facing the recognition of group rights in a liberal democratic societies. The American model, in contrast, is positioned as a model that allows for the existence of numerous intermediate groups which take on relatively unofficial positions as intermediaries. (This difference is something examined in this 2000 review in the Canadian Journal of Sociology and in this review at Gay Today, incidentally.) Martel argues that, if not for HIV/AIDS, the French model would have prevailed, that it was only the stigmatization of (male) GLBT individuals in France that led to the emergence of of American-style identities and groups like Act Up-Paris, perhaps the most active branch of ACT-UP. The bankruptcy of the American model, according to Martel, can be found in the almost universal refusal of GLBT community leaders and institutions--business owners, media people, journals, associations of professionals--to react to the first warnings that a new disease called GRID had appeared.
Martel's point might possibly be true; certainly Shilts documented much the same sort of communal paralysis in the United States. But yet, did the French state do that much better a job of confronting HIV/AIDS than the American? Rates of seropositivity in France in the early 21st century might be half those of the United States, but is that because the French state was more capable or because the HIV virus was introduced to France at a later date? Martel doesn't examine this critical issue. He should have; it would have made the conclusion less tendentious. Similarly, the inevitability of the ghetto as at least a central meeting point for a minority population that is composed, by nature, of dispersed individuals who need to be socialized is soemthing Martel doesn't touch upon. That said, this epilogue is a minor point in an otherwise compelling history that has already become the standard work in its field.
By and large, the trajectory that The Pink and the Black describes is something that I recognized from my readings of Canadian GLBT history. This is why Martel's emphasis on the difference between the French and American models of minority assimilation, in his epilogue, was somewhat confusing. Briefly put, the French model of integration assimilates individuals but refuses to recognize group identities, stemming perhaps from what Noiriel described in The French Melting Pot as the relative prominence of the state in integration and the numerous problems facing the recognition of group rights in a liberal democratic societies. The American model, in contrast, is positioned as a model that allows for the existence of numerous intermediate groups which take on relatively unofficial positions as intermediaries. (This difference is something examined in this 2000 review in the Canadian Journal of Sociology and in this review at Gay Today, incidentally.) Martel argues that, if not for HIV/AIDS, the French model would have prevailed, that it was only the stigmatization of (male) GLBT individuals in France that led to the emergence of of American-style identities and groups like Act Up-Paris, perhaps the most active branch of ACT-UP. The bankruptcy of the American model, according to Martel, can be found in the almost universal refusal of GLBT community leaders and institutions--business owners, media people, journals, associations of professionals--to react to the first warnings that a new disease called GRID had appeared.
Martel's point might possibly be true; certainly Shilts documented much the same sort of communal paralysis in the United States. But yet, did the French state do that much better a job of confronting HIV/AIDS than the American? Rates of seropositivity in France in the early 21st century might be half those of the United States, but is that because the French state was more capable or because the HIV virus was introduced to France at a later date? Martel doesn't examine this critical issue. He should have; it would have made the conclusion less tendentious. Similarly, the inevitability of the ghetto as at least a central meeting point for a minority population that is composed, by nature, of dispersed individuals who need to be socialized is soemthing Martel doesn't touch upon. That said, this epilogue is a minor point in an otherwise compelling history that has already become the standard work in its field.
