Fighting Racism Is What Makes Us Universalists
Anti-racists in France are constantly accused of being “identitarians” undermining the supposed universalism of the "color-blind" Republic. But the demands raised at the protests following George Floyd’s murder uphold actual universalism: a commitment to fighting oppression that recognizes the reality of racist and colonial violence.
Protesters stand on the monument in Place de la Republique during an anti-racism protest on June 13, 2020 in Paris, France. (Veronique de Viguerie / Getty Images)
My name is Mame-Fatou Niang. I am a film director and a professor and researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. I am Afro-French. In my country, France, claiming a hyphenated identity is a sure way to rile people up.
“The French Republic is one and indivisible – you can’t combine identity with a race or a religion!” they say. “That’s just a sad, crude invention that you’ve copied from American racial politics. Your Afro-Frenchness threatens France’s integrity.”
But I was born into a family with Senegalese roots, weaned in the French Republic, and raised in the cultures of the black diaspora: I am, quite simply, Afro-French. As an expert on black issues in France, I strive to explore and express the black French experience through my academic research and artistic output.
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