#You Know You're Black in France When

A groundbreaking study about everyday antiblackness and its refusal in an officially raceblind France.

What does it mean to be racialized-as-black in France on a daily basis? #You Know You’re Black in France When… responds to that question. Under the banner of universalism, France messages a powerful and seductive ideology of blindness to race that disappears blackened people and the antiblackness they experience. As Trica Keaton notes, in everyday life, France is anything but raceblind. 

In this interdisciplinary study, drawn from a range of critical scholarship including that of Philomena Essed and Frantz Fanon, Keaton illuminates how b/Black (racialized/politicized) French people distinctly expose and refuse what she calls “raceblind republicanism.” By officially turning a blind eye to the specificity of antiblackness, the French state in fact perpetuates it, she argues, along with structural racism. Through daily life, public policies, visual culture, the private lives of individuals and families shattered by police violence, the French courts where many are fighting back, and her own experiences, Keaton charts the troubling dynamics and continuities of antiblackness in French society.Prologue (ix)
Introduction: Setting a Context (1)
The Choice of Ignorance: Equality in Principle vs. Equal Protection (29)
#YouKnowYoureBlackinFranceWhen...: The Face of Everyday Antiblackness (57)
Au Negre Joyeux and Friends: Everyday Antiblackness Posing as Public Art (97)
On Police Violence (159)
Section I: "Everyone Hates the Police!" ("Tout le Monde Deteste la Police!"): The "Ceremony of Degradation" and the Logic of Running from Everyday Police Violence (159)
Section II: "Il Faut Se Battre!" ("You Have to Fight!"): Racial Profiling, Strategic Litigation and Accountability (183)
Coda: Universalize to Pantheonize: Scripting Josephine Baker (207)
Acknowledgments (217)
Appendix (221)
Framing Everyday Antiblackness in a Raceblind France (221)
Methods (233)
Notes (237)
Index (275)“Once again, Trica Keaton proves that she is one of the most insightful observers of the contradictions that constitute France as a racial state.”
—Roderick A. Ferguson, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and American Studies, Yale University

“This pathbreaking study marks the end of willingly ignoring knowledge of racism accumulated over generations of black experiences in France.”
—Philomena Essed, Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Leadership Studies at Antioch University; affiliated scholar, Utrecht University’s Graduate Gender program
 
“Rather than denouncing individualized racist interactions, Trica Keaton identifies the source of antiblackness in French universalist ‘raceblind’ republicanism. This is an important message to convey to public authorities and minority communities alike, and an important contribution to the scientific debate.”
—Simon Patrick, Senior researcher, National Institute for Demographic Studies in FranceTrica Keaton is Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Dartmouth College with affiliations in Film and Media Studies and Sociology. Her past books include Muslim Girls and the Other France: Race, Identity Politics, & Social Exclusion, Black Europe and the African Diaspora, and Black France/France Noire: The History and Politics of Blackness.