Château Rouge...and pigeons.

Time: 9AM
Location: 18th arrondissement, Paris
Neighborhood: Château Rouge

Upon arriving in Paris on June 4th, I was greeted by a much busier image of what you see above. About an hour after this was taken the street was filled with locals buying fresh produce for their afternoon snack or picking a good cut from the charcuterie for their Saturday night dinner. About three hours later, shortly after the police officers stationed right around the corner began their donut (or pain au chocolat) break, the "black market" was in full swing. Vendors appear out of nowhere, selling everything from Louis Vuitton bags to MAC makeup to Ray Ban sunglasses. (I was a little  upset about the sunglasses because I purchased mine in the states just before I came to Europe) Thirty minutes later the police return and the street empties faster than I can finish a gelato cone, which is extremely fast I can assure you. The same routine repeats throughout the day until dusk when everybody returns to their shabby Parisian apartments and try their best to feed their families. After a few hours of my first day in Paris my initial fears of the "sketchy" neighborhood subsided. It was then that I started to observe the interactions of its people.

The community in Château Rouge sounds like it came straight from The Lonely Londoners. Everybody gets on like they are back in Cameroon or Ghana in their local villages. There are friends and enemies. Lovers and fighters. My favorite person was the apparent matriarch of the street. I called her the Queen Mother, and she reminds me of Tanty from The Lonely Londoners. As she was selling her MAC makeup you could tell that she ran that street. It was quite amusing and fascinating at the same time. I spent many days just observing when one day I saw something unexpected.

As I was exiting the Metro station (around the left corner in the photo) I watched as crowds quickly cleared and two French police officers tackled an African man. Of course, I am not sure of the circumstances surrounding his arrest, but seeing as he came from the black market I am guessing he was selling something illegally. The police officers, who were white, exhibited unnecessary brutality following the tackle, and after the shock left my face, I returned home.

I later thought about that incident and realized that I also see others illegally selling items in many places in Paris. The Metro, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, etc. The majority of these people, though not all, are white and a majority of the places are tourist attractions. I realized that my neighborhood was a clear target for the police because few, if any, tourists walk the streets and the homogenous race of the neighborhood is able to shade any sense of racism that would be evident if an officer approached an African vendor among white vendors. I could easily be looking too far into this occurrence, but I never witnessed anything similar in central Paris, and the past of French police brutality doesn't help their case (see the 1995 film, La Haine). It may not have been intentionally racist, but I do believe there were undercurrents of racism in the incident.


If anybody is ever in Paris again, though, I do recommend spending an hour or two going out to neighborhoods like this and exploring the non-tourist Paris. Montmartre (the 18th arrondissement) is the closest one will get to experiencing "real" Paris. Even though the Sacré-Coeur is a major tourist attraction, the area has for the most part been able to retain its integrity as a true glimpse of Paris.

On another note, this little guy walked right up to Kelsey and I yesterday in London. No, we did not kill and eat. There were too many old English animal lovers in the area. (for any public viewers of this blog, that is a humorous reference to a book in our course)

Oh and that street in Paris has a fish market that attracts hundreds of pigeons that love to fly in your face. Maybe not hundreds, but enough to make me have many embarrassing encounters.

It have some good Fusic in England

You are invited to post observations on how British music changed owing to the music of the immigrants from the Caribbean, South Asia, Africa, etc.  How did Calypso translate to England?  What are the roots of Dub?  What do we think of M.I.A. and the kind of politics she brings to the table.  Etc.  Do we get to listen to the radio here?

Here's "Crooked Beat," by The Clash, to give you some sounds to contemplate.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPMG52AOiiE

My Fellow American

Whilst attempting to enjoy a few beers and make some new friends, I was confronted with the unfortunate event of meeting a white racist individual from Virginia. He first noticed my skin color and gave me looks of disapproval. All the while I sit there and just wonder to myself, Is this for real? Am I truly being judged right now? And then it began.. this drunken individual began a rant about how WE MEXICANS are the reason that home-bound soldiers and those who are 'truly innocent' and BELONG in the country are unable to attain jobs in America. He also began to mention statistics and his "truths" as to why the country is the way it is now. According to him, I do not belong in America. I stole the rights of others because my family and relatives are illegal and have NO RIGHT to live there and should go back to where I came from.
I first attempted to explain my own views of the situation but he wasn't having it. He did not let me counter his arguments to let him know that my generations of family were in the country of The Republic of Texas before it became a state. He did not let me state that my family does in fact pay taxes and are good citizens of this country. He did not let me say that I am a successful student at a world-renowned prestigious university for which I busted my ass to get into like everyone else. He spoke as if my family and friends have not served in the military to protect this country, to fight along side others who believed in the same freedom.
One has the ability to empathize with others when one hears the stories of what happened to them or a friend or family member. We are able to feel the anger, the hurt, the appall, the astonishment, the rejection. But it is completely different when you experience it for yourself firsthand; especially when you are not even in the land that you claim as your own.
Here are two things that really got to me: Firstly, my friend that I was with is of the same race as I am; she does not look the part as much as I apparently do, and yet this individual couldn't help but to attack only me for my profile even though she stood by me, claimed her identity, and attempted to argue back. Secondly, one of his own friends that was sitting there and drinking with him was African American (another minority that apparently reaps off the government so he said). He had nothing to say directly to him and still he had to attack me for who I am.
Despite all these racist attacks and degrading insults, I feel sorry for him. He is the one who will not be able to deal with the truth of the acceptance of the minorities or the fact that within the next century or so, there will be no such thing as race. We will all be people in different situations trying to live life to the best that we can in order to set a bright future for our kin to come.
But thank you, my fellow American. Thank you for opening my eyes as to the true obstacles that I have felt and seen vicariously through others but never experienced before myself.

Looking with the Soul

There have already been several interesting posts about Brixton, but I just wanted to share a little story about this man. Right outside the market, Natalie and I stopped and had a conversation with a Jamaican salesman. He spoke to us about how racism is still a very real obstacle for him and how he notices people looking at him with disgust as they pass him by, for no apparent reason. One thing he said stood out to me in particular:

"But we don't care what color you are. We don't look with the eyes; we look with the soul."

Brixton Hair Salon

This is a picture of the hair salon Kelsey mentioned on the last post.The salon is a great representation of the blacks that live in Brixton: people from different places of the world, bringing their own cultural and fashion influences to Inglan

Gentrified Brixton

I ate jerk chicken for lunch in Brixton. A few of us bought boxes of it with purple rice and carrots from a man drinking a Jamaican Ginger Beer in a food truck around the corner from the market. The chicken was delicious, but the experience was not a horribly unique one for me. While my blonde hair and burnable skin definitely stood out from the hair salon I stood in front of to shovel in my lunch, Brixton reminded me of the neighborhood where my best friend lived in Dallas.

What was surreal and uncomfortable for me, happened an hour later. Plastering my face with jerk chicken was probably a typical Brixton experience--at least I hope so since that food was so good. The tiny gentrified white area, though, where I drank my double espresso from a royal blue cup and sat next to a faux distressed brick wall vividly displayed how gentrification invades a community. Around the corner from the three fish displays all having staring contests with one another, was a little haven of primarily white, upper middle class, hipsters. There was a coffee shop, a bakery, and a few other little stores. One of the walls was made of recycled cardboard tubes.

On the street outside, the current residents of Brixton laughed and joked with one another. That is their city, with their friends, and their children. None of those residents, so comfortable on the street or with the fish, were in this newly gentrified area. I asked myself why this area existed (cheap rent?) for the businesses certainly were not trying to expand the culture of the area, or become a part of the community. There are a thousand hipster villages in London. For an area with so much culture and vibrancy, this gentrification is a bit unsettling.

While walking around the Brixton Market yesterday, I found this art display commemorating people who lost their lives in a bombing of the area. The words that are lit up change and the light changes color randomly. This draws the viewer's attention to certain phrases at certain times as it is viewed. I thought it was interesting to see such a modern art display amid the hustle of the market, and one that pays homage to an act of violence since we were just talking about the violence in the area during the Brixton riots.