Hello Everyone:
Welcome to a fresh week on the blog and fresh outrage over the Mr. Donald Trump's shocking performance at a press conference, today, in Helsinki, Finland. This was a joint presser with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a summit between the two leaders. Ideally, the summit should have been cancelled in the wake of Friday's indictment of 12 Russian agents for meddling in the 2016 election. Today, a Russian gun-rights activist was charged for posing as a foreign agent. What makes the president's conduct so shocking is that he, to be blunt, trashed his own country. In a tweet (of course), he blamed the U.S.'s own stupidity for its frosty relationship with Russia. He, as always, went on to blame the Department of Justice, the American intelligence community, President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton before concluding with the usual "witch hunt" and "no collusion." Never has an American president ever abased himself so much, ever. This is disgraceful conduct unbecoming to an American president. Rant over.
Vive les bleus. Congratulations to 2018 FIFA World Cup champions Team France. What makes France's victory so unique is that the team was primarily made up of sons of immigrants from Muslim countries. The team members grew up in the banlieues (the suburbs). These suburbs are not exactly the white-picket-fences type of suburbs, rather, the balieues are on the outskirts of Paris and home to immigrants from former French colonies, now independent nations in Africa including tourament teen sensation Kylian Mbappé. They are not the glamorous Paris that have been filtered through the media. No tree-lined boulevard or charming cafes, just monolithic apartment buildings and small businesses. Therefore, Blogger thought it might be a great time to go back and take a look at the banlieues. With help of Tanvi Misra's 2017 CityLab "The Othered Paris," we begin looking at the place most of Team France calls home and the concept of spatial segregation. Allez (Onward)
We begin in Aulnay-sous-Bois on the Boulevard Marc Chagall where a rally protesting the questionable death of Yacine Ben Kahla is taking place. On September 14, the 24-year-old young man was last seen alive at 4:50 a.m., telephoned his mother to say he on his way up. He never made it. Instead, he was found dead, the next morning , dead with his pants around his ankles. The police attributed the death to a cocaine overdose but to his family, "the pattern of contusions on his body appears consistent with the way the French police immobilizes people,..." The family felt they were not getting straight answers from the police and modestly demanded a real and transparent investigation into his death.
Mistrust in the police's account of the event is familiar to the residents of Aulnay-sous-Bois, a suburb in Seine-Saint-Denis--"the 93 Department and one of the poorest regions (insee.fr; June 2, 2015; date accessed July 16, 2018)--nor is it incidental." Mr. Ben Kahla's death came months after the police were accused of allegedly raping a 22-year-old person with a baton from the area. Ms. MIsra reports, "The police called it an accident. And last year [2016], another young man named Adama Traoré died under suspicious circumstances [theguardian.com; Feb. 17, 2017; date accessed July 16, 2018] in police custody in another town further north." Dubbed "France's Ferguson" (slate.com; Feb. 1, 2017; date accessed July 16, 2018), it ignited France's Black Lives Matter movement. The police claimed Mr. Traoré died of a heart attack but contradictory official reports of what happens (mobile.lemonde.fr; Sept. 15, 2016; date accessed July 16, 2018) surfaced during the investigation.
At the rally, which took place last October, Yacine Ben Kahla's family addressed the crowd. His brother Bilel told the assembly of friends, neighbors, and everyone else,
This is geographic injustice,.... People in the 'quartiers populaires' do not have the same access to rights and justices.
Tanvi Misra describes, "The outskirts of Paris are not--and perhaps have never been--neutral spaces. Today, the term 'banlieue' or 'suburbs' have become a euphemism for the racial other; these spaces embody the stereotype that plague their residents, many of whom are working class immigrants of the Middle Eastern and North African descent." Young Muslim men from these areas are often considered "aimless delinquents" (rassemblementnational.fr; Mar. 31, 2016; date accessed July 16, 2018) at best and imminent terrorists (newyorker.com; Aug. 31, 2015; date accessed July 16, 2018) at worst. The female population needs liberation. The spatial stigma is not an abstract concept. "It prevents residents from getting job [washingtonpost.com; Nov. 23, 2015; date accessed July 16, 2018] and getting into good schools [letudiant.fr; July 6, 2015; date accessed July 16, 2018]; it investors stricter policing; it creates a positive feedback loop for unemployment, poverty [bbc.com; Oct. 27, 2015; date accessed July 16, 2018], anger, and political apathy [nytimes.com; Apr. 30, 2017; date accessed July 16, 2018]."
An affirmative action program to correct the socioeconomic problems is not part of the discussion in a country that stubbornly clings to "color-blind Republicanism" so much so that questions on race are not even on the Census form. Ms. Misra reports, "As a workaround solution, a territory-based aid plan was created." Since the eighties (cohesion-territoires.gouv.fr; date accessed July 16, 2018), French urban policy (politique de la ville) singles out specific areas--mostly in the banlieues--that are in need of extra attention. Referred, at first,mas "sensitive urban zones"--later re-named (legifrance.gouv.fr; Dec. 30, 2014; date accessed July 2018) "priority neighborhood of the city (cohesion-territoires.gouv.fr; date accessed July 16, 2018)--"these area have been sites for direct government interventions in housing, economic development, education, and security for the last forty years."
However,mother residents, activists, and scholars that Ms. Misra spoke with believe that this policy may have simply "'institutionalized the stigma, eclipsing the benefits [lexpress.fr; Oct. 15, 2009; date accessed July 16, 2018] it currently provides." Many are concerned that it does not address the roots of these issues in the spaces--"that it's a 'solution façade,' as Bilel Ben Kahla puts it." Essentially what remains is the distinct feeling that banlieue residents are not only being physically marginalized but also their histories and identities....
July 17, 2018
Welcome back. Before we continue our discussion on les bleu Banlieue, a quick update on the eye-popping, mind numbing performance of the president in Helsinki, Finland. Mr. Donald Trump walked back on his comments saying that he meant to say "would" instead of "wouldn't." Right, of course. Moving on, we will discuss the concept of spatial stigma in the Banlieue.
"Spatial stigma: a long tradition"
Journalists refer to the banlieues as the "Other Paris" (nytimes.com; Nov. 9, 2013 date accessed July 17, 2018) is, according to Tanvi Misra as a "diverse, varied and most of all, normal." It is the part of Paris that is not part of any tour, not the place to sit in a café and sip tea. Ms. MIsra sat down to talk with Chayma Drira, a journalist and student at Sciences Po, at café directly across from a gothic basilica where French queens were crowned. Ms Drira's family came to France in the sixties following the Algerian War for Independence. In the seventies, they moved to public housing in La Courneuve--also in Department 93. This was the place that then-minister of interior, Nicholas Sarkozy, famously promised to "clean up" the cités in 2005 (ina.fr; date accessed July 18, 2018). Ms. Drira told Ms. Misra, "Home prices in La Courneuve are prohibitively high for many because the suburb has a metro stop,..." Some areas of the Banlieue have amenities but go a few blocks, and it can be a ghost town. Ms. Drira said, Uniformly, though, they lack book stores, libraries, and other "third spaces,...
To the residents, the "Other Paris" is home like any other place. However, people in the city center have a different perspective. They do not see it as a place to sit and sip tea or any beverage. The city center dwellers are frequently too frightened to come and visit because they think it is unsafe--particularly for women. Ms. Drira said, There is a lot of stigma in this town...because of politics...
The suburbs' bad reputation is not a contemporary phenomena, according to American University sociologist Ernesto Castaneda-Tinoco (american.edu; date accessed July 17, 2018). Mr. Castaneda-Tinoco studies the stigmatization of marginalized urban spaces
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