Expressing and contesting minoritization in ‘minor mode’: online conversations of Black youth of West African descent in the Paris region

ABSTRACT

This article explores daily online conversations between Black young people of West African descent in the Paris region. It analyses how they react to the racial and social categorizations which they are subjected to. How do they express and/or contest everyday racism, discrimination, and their being defined as a social and ethno-racial minority? What are the social effects of these modes of expression? Away from the explicit and organized discourses from associations and anti-racist groups, these conversations show how people invent modes of expressions and/or contest everyday racism, using spaces and modes which are not always explicitly political or militant, but refer to their experience of minoritization. Analysing ‘minor modes’ of expressing and contesting opens to a study on the processes of community building among black people in the French migratory and postcolonial context.

KEYWORDS:

• West African descendants in France
• minoritization
• contesting everyday racism
• community building
• Internet

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The ‘zones urbaines sensibles', also known as ‘quartier en difficulté' (problem areas), are characterized by a high unemployment rate and the presence of large numbers of high-rise buildings and dilapidated housing.

2. ‘Asterix the Gaul' is the hero of a comic series by Goscinny. The motto ‘Our ancestors the Gauls' (nos ancêtres les Gaulois) was for a long time part of the history curriculum, including in former French colonies. 

3. In August 2005, 17 people (including 4 children) died in the arson that wrecked this public-owned building serving social housing purposes. Malian families lived there, awaiting for public relocation. That summer, other buildings hosting immigrant families also went in flames. Fifty people died. In 2011, both the association in charge of the Boulevard Auriol building and the construction company which had renovated it were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and unintentional injury.

4. It ought to be borne in mind that although called ‘tirailleurs sénégalais', those soldiers came from different parts of French Africa.

5. ‘Bounty' is an offensive reference which meaning is similar to ‘Oreo' in the USA (Black outside, very white inside).

6. This TV film was directed by Daniel Vigne (2001), broadcasted prime time on a public-owned French channel and sparked some controversy. It was thus presented in the press:

It tells Fatou's story, a young Parisian girl of Malian origins, a perfectly integrated, outstanding high-school student, whom her parents want to marry with an uncle from ‘back home’. This story was based on true facts was watched by 8 million people nationwide. (Le Parisien, 21.04.2001).

7. These names refer to events which are designated as racist, discriminatory, and unfair by a lot of Internet users. For example, Lamine Dieng was the 25-year-old son of Senegalese immigrants who died in a police van during a search in a housing estate to the east of Paris. In 2014, the police officers were officially declared not guilty, but Lamine's family and several Paris associations are still calling the events a ‘police foul-up'.