Les écoutes and les émeutes, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Riots

The French media gleefully report that similar riots are breaking out in Brussels and in Germany. Never mind the single digit numbers of cars burned in these countries compared with the thousands in France. It’s always nice when something bad happens to someone else, too. It’s Shadenfreutastic!The American media just can’t get enough of the riots in France. White Americans are wetting themselves they’re so happy. All those burned cars. All that anger. And, here’s the real kicker: no history of slavery.

The suburban riots in France let white America off the hook. The riots let conservatives insinuate that minorities who aren’t fully co-opted by Christian capitalist values are inherently dangerous. And the riots let the New Left continue to repeat its mantra that “it’s class, not race” that matters in this country. Now, this is not entirely wrong.

It does suck to be poor and white in this country, too. Or poor and brown.

That doesn’t mean that our “peculiar institution” doesn’t demand peculiar remedy. Slavery has affected both race AND class relations in this country, and until we can be honest about this we’re not going to get very far. But facing uncomfortable truths and grappling with problems that defy easy solutions is, well, HARD. It’s easier to sit back and watch les banlieues burn and feel smug.

The media want to imagine that the French riots mirror our own race problems. But they have been mute on another story in France this week: the conviction (and suspended sentence) of former cabinet ministers for tapping phones at the behest of President Mitterand. Maybe the idea of top government officials violating the civil liberties of the citizenry under the pretext of fighting terrorism hits a little too close to home.


Remember when we had an adversarial press? Me neither.