Watching Paris, we watch ourselves

Maggie says:
For a country used to congratulating itself for being one-of-a-kind in the best of ways, for celebrating everything that's “uniquely American,” the recent riots in Paris are useful reminders that we in fact share lots in common with our global neighbors. Our world isn't so big that our problems aren't universal ones.

Due to global decisions by powers that be, strikingly similar populations everywhere are subjected to discrimination and poverty by those with power. Most depressing, it takes "straw on the camel's back" moments that incite explosions in segregated neighborhoods for anyone to really take notice. As we watch France handle its own "Katrina will now make us talk about race in this country" moment, it'll be interesting to listen to their conversation, consider its lasting impact, and compare it to our own.

Similarities between us and France abound (to the heated denial of many a Freedom Fry eater, I'm sure). Here's what we both are:

• Countries famous for turning a blind eye to our race problems
• Countries with massive unemployment among our minority population
• Countries with residential segregation
• Countries with extreme neighborhood-by-neighborhood disparities, depending on the color of who lives there
• Countries where blatant stereotyping by the dominant group toward minorities and male youth in particular is common
• Countries with heavy-handed policing within its minority neighborhoods
• Countries where rampant discrimination, poor housing, and few job opportunities for its people of color are common

This list is the build-up to the Paris riots. But it's also the build-up to Los Angeles in the '90s and New Orleans this fall. This time, we watch urban riots from across an ocean. We see Paris - city of romance, money, and culture - exposed for what it is: a place just like our places, full of problems like ours. For the first time, many Americans are realizing that Paris is not just home to urbane smokers and art patrons; Paris is a city of immigrants, in a country plagued by discrimination, poverty, and few opportunities for those new arrivals. In America, in France, immigrants have left their homes for better chances and better lives, only to be beaten down at every turn because they can never really be Americans. They can never really be French.

They can't because our cities, our dominant societies, won't let them be. Those are our choices.

For every conservative commentator who believes that Katrina "proved" how out-of-control urban African-Americans are, or how unfit for proper French society North African immigrants are, we can only hope dozens of average countrymen are seeing fellow citizens pushed to the brink, pushed beyond what us "average" (read: dominant) folk could ever take, have ever been asked to take. Recognizing those different starting points helps us understand each other's breaking points.

From there, and only from there, can true change begin.

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