You Must be Joking.

"They always said, ‘You think race relations are bad here in France, check out the U.S.,’ said Mohamed Hamidi, former editor of the Bondy Blog, founded after the 2005 riots in the heavily immigrant suburbs of Paris."
New York Times; 11/12/08

As regular readers of this blog may know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool left-wing bohemian drug-addled wretch. I am what professional wordsmith Dan Fuerbach has dubbed Amerotrash, and it goes without saying that there are many things I admire about Europe; relaxed sexual mores, tolerance for midday drinking, Dante, Goethe, Nietzsche, Kafka, Bergman, Bunuel, Goya, Magritte, Joyce, Herzog, Vinnie Jones, Rasputin, Ravaillac, etc.

Nonetheless I am still fundamentally American at heart,so I know cultural arrogance when I see it, and am rarely surprised by it, especially when it comes from the French. But I couldn't help but to be floored by the quote above. I have no problem conceding that American race relations have been as bad as France's or Europe's in general, but WORSE?







You're kidding right?