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[BRIEF NOTE] American Francophobia
Apr. 18th, 2004 02:14 pmLast night, for some unknown reason, I was browsing the Wall Street Journal's on-line blog site when I came across this mention of the recent statement of the French ambassador to the United States that much of the recent hostility towards France was racist.
Their commentary upon it? The Wall Street Journal's writer asks "[W]hat does Levitte mean when he calls anti-French attitudes 'racist'? We were under the impression that most Frenchmen were white?" and then goes on to link to Joshua Kurlantzick's article in The New Yorker commenting on how Kerry's responding to Republican criticism that he's "French":
Perhaps I'm dim, but I fail to see how this disproves Levitte's point. None of Kerry's ancestors are French; two of Kerry's ancestors, though, are Jewish. Imagine what would have happened had these same Republicans accused Kerry of being "too Jewish."
The Wall Street Journal is purposely missing the point. There isn't a French race: I've recently demonstrated that there isn't one now, and there arguably hasn't been one for at least a century, if indeed one ever existed. But then, there isn't a Jewish race either: It did take the Holocaust and a century of mass migrations to cement a Jewish national identity, and even then Israel--to say nothing of the American and French Jewish communities--remain heterogeneous. The facts of French and Jewish heterogeneity, though, don't bother racists.
Perhaps "racism" isn't the right word to use. Something very nasty, though, was at work.
Their commentary upon it? The Wall Street Journal's writer asks "[W]hat does Levitte mean when he calls anti-French attitudes 'racist'? We were under the impression that most Frenchmen were white?" and then goes on to link to Joshua Kurlantzick's article in The New Yorker commenting on how Kerry's responding to Republican criticism that he's "French":
Everything changed, though, when, in recent months, Republicans started intimating that Kerry was too Continental. Conservatives complained about his touting of endorsements from foreign leaders, and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans told reporters that Kerry "looks French." Right-wing talk-show hosts began referring to him as "Monsieur Kerry" and "Jean Cheri." A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that G. Clotaire Rapaille, a French anthropologist known for identifying the subconscious associations that people from various cultures make in the "reptilian" part of their brains, had offered to become the Senator's Gallic Naomi Wolf, devising ways for him to rid his speaking style of French influences.
Suddenly, Kerry appeared to develop linguistic amnesia. "During a press conference, I asked Kerry a question, on Iraq," [French TV reporter Alain] de Chalvron recalled. "He didn't answer. In front of the American journalists, he didn't want to take a question that was not in English." Loïck Berrou, the United States bureau chief for de Chalvron's competitor, TF1, has been having similar problems. Berrou chatted in French with Kerry on a commercial flight last year; the Senator reminisced about his family's country house in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, a village in Brittany, where Kerry's cousin is the mayor. "We've pushed hard to get an interview with him, and no answer," Berrou says.
Family members have apparently been put on a leash as well. Kerry's wife, Berrou says, "speaks with us in French with no problem, and her press attaché has to pull her by the shirt to get her away from us."
Perhaps I'm dim, but I fail to see how this disproves Levitte's point. None of Kerry's ancestors are French; two of Kerry's ancestors, though, are Jewish. Imagine what would have happened had these same Republicans accused Kerry of being "too Jewish."
The Wall Street Journal is purposely missing the point. There isn't a French race: I've recently demonstrated that there isn't one now, and there arguably hasn't been one for at least a century, if indeed one ever existed. But then, there isn't a Jewish race either: It did take the Holocaust and a century of mass migrations to cement a Jewish national identity, and even then Israel--to say nothing of the American and French Jewish communities--remain heterogeneous. The facts of French and Jewish heterogeneity, though, don't bother racists.
Perhaps "racism" isn't the right word to use. Something very nasty, though, was at work.
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