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43 Can We speak of a Postcolonial racism? (1961–2006) saïd Bouamama and Pierre tevanian to the question of whether or not we can speak of a postcolonial racism, we ask another: How can we not? How can we speak of contemporary forms of racism without referring to their primary genealogies: systems of slavery and colonialism ? How can we possibly negate the fact that a deep racism exists, which can be traced back to the French colonial empire’s institutions, practices, discourse, and forms of representation? How can we negate it when, for example, opinion polls clearly indicate a strong and durable form of scorn or targeted rejection with respect to immigrants from the former colonized countries? over the past several decades, two phenomena have emerged, as shown in various surveys:1 (1) the most recent immigrants are always the most denigrated, the most feared, and the most scorned, but time slowly dissipates this fear and this scorn; (2) immigrants from the former colonies, especially from africa, are the exception to this rule. in other words, one can distinguish between a xenophobic stigma that exists in its worst forms only for new arrivals, and a racist stigma that is a crystallization of more deeply rooted prejudice. as a result, the racism toward the second category does not dissipate—or hardly does so—with the renewal of generations and their rootedness in France. Though immigrants from italy, Poland, armenia, and Portugal were the object of despicable discourse and often quite brutal discrimination upon their arrival in France, discrimination similar in form and in violence to what today’s postcolonial immigrants undergo, this was not the case for their children, and even less so for their grandchildren.2 The same cannot be said for the children of north african or sub-saharan african immigrants, who are the only ones to be condemned to the absurd—but politically eloquent—appellation of “second- or third-generation immigrants” and the accompanying forms of discrimination. if, as albert Memmi describes it, racism is “a generalized and definitive valorization of real or imaginary differences, which benefits the accuser to the detriment of the victim, in order to legitimize aggression and privilege,”3 then there is a specific kind of racism that has been constructed in order to legitimize colonial aggression and privilege. “Cultural differences” (especially with respect to Muslims ) were essentialized and naturalized; a “moral” form of exclusion was justi527 528 | Bouamama and Tevanian fied based on these differences; the “native” was theorized and created as a “body of exception” and framed by specific legislation (formalized, for example, in algeria by the sénatus-consulte of July 14, 1865).4 This culturalist racism did indeed get passed down from generation to generation, including in the era following independence—and this without much change, as is the case with any system of representation that goes unchecked by criticism or deconstruction. it is difficult to deny that representations of the “black,” the “immigrant,” the “Muslim,” the “beur” or the “beurette” continue to enjoy widespread circulation in contemporary French society and not without consequences.5 “Cultural” difference remains overvalued in French society (“they” are different from “us”) while other differences are ignored that relate to class or “personality” (“they” are all the same, and “we” all share the same “national identity”). nor can it be denied that this twofold operation of differentiation and amalgamation results in patently inferiorizing representations (in the best case, “they” are seen as backward or deficient, and in the worst for the danger they represent, while “we” embody “reason,” the “universal,” and “modernity”).6 Finally, there is no question that this devalorizing discourse serves to legitimate a situation of oppression, of relegation, and of systemic social exclusion within the contemporary postcolonial space. systemic and institutional discrimination after decades of denial and blindness to the fact, the extreme level of racist discrimination is finally beginning to be recognized. Moreover, many are ready to admit that this discrimination more specifically affects the descendents of “formerly colonized” peoples. However, despite the existence of several studies highlighting the systemic character of these forms of discrimination, discrimination is still mostly seen as isolated acts of “misunderstanding the other” or a “withdrawal into oneself.”7 The victims themselves are even at times blamed for their lack of “integration” or their “cultural” backwardness. in all cases, the existence of the social process of the production of discrimination is entirely denied. But this process has been put in place by the institutions of...

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