What to remember from the very beautiful documentary “Blacks in France”, to review on France.tv

They are young, old, from Paris, Niort or Bordeaux, in primary school, high school student, dancer, caregiver, rapporteur at the Court of Auditors, rapper, boxer, actor-director, lecturer, tennis player, journalist or former tirailleur, known or unknown, and they all have one thing in common: they are French and black. In the beautiful documentary Blacks in Franceto see in replay on france.tv until March 19, the journalist Aurelia Perreau and the writer Alain Mabanckou give them the floor.

Through their individual journeys and interesting archival images, the universal imagination emerges which feeds the representation that the French have of blacks but also the representation that blacks here have of themselves and of France.

What is it to be black? “It’s the gaze of the other that decides if I’m black, white or mulatto“, answers the tennis player and singer Yannick Noah. But when do we realize that we are? Often in childhood and rarely with compliments. “At school, there is one who says that I look like a poo“, confides a little girl. “In boarding school I was the only non-white and I became Bamboula in a few minutes“, remembers Yannick Noah. Prejudices that often pursue them, in a more subdued way, in the world of work. “The doors are closed so you have to go through the window“, sums up the caregiver Didier Viellot, who was told to be younger than he was”not the right colorto become a decorator.

These racial prejudices go back a long way and have been built up over time, since the slave trade, as the authors show us by unearthing illuminating archive images. We see in particular how the biological racism of the 19th century was developed, which was based on a supposedly scientific hierarchy of races – blacks, located at the bottom of the table, being described as unfit for intellectual tasks – very convenient for establishing the domination.

These stereotypes of primitive black persisted until recently in cultural representations, from music videos There are Papuans by Marie Dauphin (1987) at Club Dorothée where an episode from 1988 showed the presenter roasting in a huge pot surrounded by blacks in loincloths. Not to mention the unthinkable and unworthy “Village Bamboula”, an African folk village set up in Loire-Atlantique in the early 90s.

The weight of these prejudices still has a considerable influence on the unconscious of children today. Laetitia Helouet, rapporteur at the Court of Auditors, remembers that she thought, as a child, “that one day, I too will turn white“. While the young dancer Kathy Laurent Pourcel admits having refused to eat chocolate for a long time because she was afraid of becoming blacker.

Particularly edifying is the “Doll Test”, an experiment carried out in the 1940s in the United States, in full segregation, which consisted in asking black children if they preferred a white doll or a black doll. The vast majority opted for the white doll (which strongly echoes the novel The bluest eye by Toni Morrison). Reproduced today in France for the documentary about ten children, the experience shows that nothing has changed. The black children all prefer the white doll. “Because she has blue eyes“, said one. “Because the children of my school are white, and me when I grow up I will put cream to become white“, responds another.

If this documentary never gives in to victimization, it nevertheless highlights through various trajectories, the many humiliations faced by many blacks today in France. The young Ibrahima Bouillaud practices running and athletics with passion in Niort. But while he was running in a hooded tracksuit for training, he happened to be arrested by the police, who suspected him of having made a bad move. “Black and in joggers, you’re targeted“, he summarizes. The rapper Soprano tells how he and his group Psy 4 de la rime, who were traveling in first class on board a TGV, had found themselves the target of a controller who had indicated to them with second class management and, addressing their white manager, had asked “They speak French, them?“, before calling the police.

To build themselves up in the face of discrimination, the Blacks of France have often turned to the United States to find models to identify with, champions who have established themselves in the sporting and cultural fields, such as the boxer Mohamed Ali, champion of black pride, which we see very upset against Bernard Pivot on the show Apostrophe in 1976. Today, the young Ibrahima draws from the images of this hero displayed in his room the strength to believe in it: “If he could do it, I can succeed in what I undertake“, he remarks. As for the young dancer Kathy, whose arch was considered incompatible with the career of classical dancer of which she dreams, it is with the stubborn singer Nina Simone that she finds inspiration. to continue.

This delicate film is also a bearer of hope and shows that attitudes are slowly changing. The actor and director Jean-Pascal Zadi, Caesarized last year, welcomes the fact that the actor Omar Sy or the rapper Soprano are among the favorite personalities of the French. The young chef Mory Sacko, at the head of MoSuke, the first African cuisine restaurant to obtain a Michelin star, believes that his generation has finally “the right to dream of being an astronaut, physicist or cook“. As for Kathy the dancer, she did, she said, “no desire to sit on (his) dreams“and don’t count”don’t wait for society to change“.”So here I go!“, she says, optimistic and determined.

“Blacks in France” by Aurelia Perreau and Alain Mabanckou (France, 2022, 1h43) can be viewed in replay on france.tv until March 19, 2022