Politically Incorrect France

The French are the opposite of politically correct.  Basically, they call 'em like they see 'em.  As an American, it can be shocking and uncomfortable.  Even writing this blog post makes me feel a little uneasy.  In France, people of African heritage are just "Black" (incidentally, they use the English word black - to use the french word 'noir' is a faux pas).  Arabic people are "Arab" - something that makes me uncomfortable, and a British girl told me that to call someone an "Arab" in England would land you in jail, or force you to pay a hefty fine.  Jewish People are "Jews";  Asian people are "Oriental".  It doesn't just extend to the color of someone's skin, either.  Senior Citizen translates to "old people"; if a student in school is acting silly or inappropriate, the teacher will say, "Stop being stupid" or "Stop all of this stupidity!" rather than something like, "Ok, let's settle down!". Native American or First Peoples becomes "Indians", and so on.  At first, all of this can be jarring.  In America, we distance ourselves from such social constructs as race and economic standing.  We don't talk about it, and when we do, it is behind the veil of terms that have been deemed appropriate.  If possible, we avoid mentioning race at all costs.  This not being the case in France, it can seem a bit strange to someone new to France.  For example, a few weeks ago I went to choir rehearsal early to work on a duet that I am singing for Christmas eve.  

"Je ne sais pas qui va chanter cette morceaux avec toi."  - "I don't know who will sing this piece with you." Lionel the choir director told me. "I think I will ask Joscylene," he continued, "because she has sung it before."
"Which one is Joscylene?" I asked.
"The Black one."  He responded.

I was a little shocked.  In the States, we would have had an exchange like this:

Me: "Who is Joscylene?"
Lionel: "She's the one with dark brown hair and brown eyes, she's about yay high, she wears a red coat."
Me: "Oh, the one with glasses?"
Lionel: "No, she doesn't have glasses.  She usually comes in about five minutes late, she has a iphone, her husband's name is Bill."
Me: (figuring out who Joscylene is) "Oh yes, the one with the iphone.  Ok, I know her now."

It's ridiculous.  Joscylene is the only non white female in choir, yet in the USA we would be reluctant to say it. Which brings me to my second point about the French lack of political correctness.  


In general, the French are much less racist than Americans.  Don't get me wrong, they have plenty of prejudices, it's simply that racism isn't really one of them, and certainly not to the extent that it is a problem in the United States.  For example, anyone who has either been a teacher, teacher's assistant, or just remembers high school knows that when students are given a choice, they ALWAYS sit together in racially segregated groups.  Of course there are exceptions, there always are.  But this is a phenomenon that has been well recorded in the States, so much so that there was a book entitled, "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" by psychologist Beverly Daniel Tatum.  In French schools, this is simply not the case.  The schools that I work at have approximately an equal number of White, Black, and Arabic children, with a few Asian and a few South American kids in each grade.  I have watched them at recess and during their free time in class, and it appears that they are seemingly unaware of race as a determinant in which kids are appropriate for them to befriend.  


The fact that the French language uses what Americans view as offensive language to refer to racial groups might actually be an indication that French society, as a whole, is less racist than American society.  By openly discussing race, the French indicate that they have no reservations about doing so, or about acknowledging race in general.  It's possible that we as Americans distance ourselves from race discussions because we have more privately held beliefs about race than the French do, who seem to hold no taboos whatsoever about having these discussions.


Like a lot of things in my life as a foreigner, I've found that what seemed uncomfortable, scary or offensive at first is actually just a result of different ways of thinking and conceptualizing the world.  I'm certainly not advocating that we start using offensive terms for different groups of people, but maybe if we were able to openly discuss things - why don't we talk about race?  Why aren't different groups of people able to find more common ground? - we wouldn't need to constantly invent new language to distance ourselves from our societal problems.  Maybe instead of making up new words,  we could actually just solve our problems instead.