2) How is being in Paris similar to living in America for African Americans? (121)
3) How do French Africans experience Parisian life? Is it similar to the way in which African Americans do? (122)
Diego Rivera, Pan-American Unity
Diego Rivera, Pan-American Unity
Armando writes:
ReplyDeleteThe African-American man has become the invisible man in Paris because he has lost his familiarity with his own people. He has separated himself from the ghetto and has lost his connection to other African-Americans. He refuses to associate himself with them, choosing instead to live an independent life. In Paris, he can just fade into the background, and live his life in a way that wouldn't associate him with any particular group.
Cindi Widerker wrote:
ReplyDelete2-French Africans are still connected to their homeland in Africa. Baldwin writes that "In Paris, the African Negro's status, conspicuous and subtly inconvenient, is that of a colonial; and he leads here the intangibly precarious life of someone abruptly and recently uprooted" (121). Baldwin also explains that the French African has the objective of trying to free his homeland. The African American is completely alienated from Africa and has dealt with a kind of white supremacy and racism that the French African has not, but has not dealt with colonialism the way the French African has. African Americans, because of the racism they experience back at home, try to avoid one another because seeing each other is a painful reminder of the injustices they both have endured in America. French Africans, though, stick together in Paris, speaking the same language and having the same ultimate ambition to free their African country from its imperial power. The African American has come to Paris to escape the harsh cruelty of the U.S. while French Africans probably came to Paris with the motive of freeing their country one day. Thus, the experience of the French African in Paris and the experience of African American in Paris is vastly different.