I had a struggle session with my ex (white) about this one when people were praisong some of the hardcore French protests and I was noticably less enthused, because they identified that I was biased against France / the French and that seems really out of character for how much I hate racism. Well, after some struggle, with me defending my discomfort and trying to explain why it was not the same, I finally was able to articulate feelings about French colonialism and seeing how disgustingly hatefully Islamophobic (we really need a better suffix than “phobic”, they don’t fear Muslims, they hate Muslims!) mainstream French culture or at least their legal system ended up getting especially with all the manufactured controversy about the Charlie Hedbo blowback.
And then they got it, or said they did, and dropped the issue, and I found that now that I understood the source of these feelings I could be a bit more discerning in my frankish discomfort and not lump French leftists in with the same discomfort. But they’ve gotta actually be leftists, not leftist for themselves and fascists for the global south.
(we really need a better suffix than “phobic”, they don’t fear Muslims, they hate Muslims!)
we have a word for that, it’s called “french” /s
Another note, I get really surprised by how mostly white people treat even slight banter at countries that committed centuries of atrocities as “racism” or “xenophobia” ???
I get really surprised by how mostly white people treat even slight banter at countries that committed centuries of atrocities as “racism” or “xenophobia”
Sometimes I think it’s because it is difficult to teach people what the words mean on a visceral level unless they’ve personally experienced it
I had a struggle session with my ex (white) about this one when people were praisong some of the hardcore French protests and I was noticably less enthused, because they identified that I was biased against France / the French and that seems really out of character for how much I hate racism. Well, after some struggle, with me defending my discomfort and trying to explain why it was not the same, I finally was able to articulate feelings about French colonialism and seeing how disgustingly hatefully Islamophobic (we really need a better suffix than “phobic”, they don’t fear Muslims, they hate Muslims!) mainstream French culture or at least their legal system ended up getting especially with all the manufactured controversy about the Charlie Hedbo blowback.
And then they got it, or said they did, and dropped the issue, and I found that now that I understood the source of these feelings I could be a bit more discerning in my frankish discomfort and not lump French leftists in with the same discomfort. But they’ve gotta actually be leftists, not leftist for themselves and fascists for the global south.
we have a word for that, it’s called “french” /s
Another note, I get really surprised by how mostly white people treat even slight banter at countries that committed centuries of atrocities as “racism” or “xenophobia” ???
Lmaoooooo :)
Sometimes I think it’s because it is difficult to teach people what the words mean on a visceral level unless they’ve personally experienced it