Two human rights activists from the Netherlands talked about the situation there in English with French translation:
More video’s can be seen on the Facebook page of La Nouvelle Voie Anticoloniale.
Today, on French TV, on a famous silly entertainment program (the Mad Mag), some White host mocked a Black famous guy by doing blackface. The host, Andreas Kastrinos, was then so proud of himself that he let the program post it on Twitter. He was praised. Everyone laughed. Well *almost* everyone. The Twitter Afropean community did not find it at its taste.
We are tired to see White folks mocking Black people without consequences for them, but heavy consequences for us: White privilege at its most.
The network NRJ12 did not say a word about it. They do not plan to, I guess. The program, Le Mad Mag, which is the worst disinformation show I’ve ever seen (not that I EVER watched it before today), has also remained silent.
In Europe and everywhere else in the world, Black people struggle to be taken seriously, and sometimes spend hours straightening and destroying their beautiful hair to go to a job interview because no one would hire someone with a « messy » fro. My aunts, my grandmothers, my sisters, they all use whitening cream to lighten their sacred but secretly hated Black skin.
Now, last June, another stupid French White host (Loris Giuliano) performed a grotesque blackface dance titled “Fatoumata” with an atrocious red duckface (parody of Black lips for racists).
Loris Giuliano had painted himself Black, put some ballons under a wax boubou to mimic a big fat bottom and large boobs, apparently supposed to match the retarded image some racist White folks have from Black mature women. This evening show has achieved high viewing rates.
This humiliating dance has streamed, buzzed, and it opened the gate to many other blackface parties (see Edhec French school blackface, Université de Saint-Louis Bruxelles blackface, and today’s show).
Following the “Fatoumata” event, the French Superior Council of Audivisual (content) or CSA received over 250 complaints. Yet, they persisted with their institutional racism and declared: “Blackface does not intend to discriminate against a certain group of people”.
Alright then. French police: persist with killing Black folks like Adama Traoré. French structures: persist with facial discrimination. French TV: persist with grotesque blackface.
Let’s see how long you will hold, because we. Will. Not. Let. Go. Until blackface is legitimately considered a racial humiliation, and therefore punished.
Black skin is not a costume. We’re a culture, not a costume.
This is non-negotiable.
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