Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 11 Nov 2008 03:30 Post subject: Obama Inspires Affirmative Action in France
Quote:
PARIS (AP) - Inspired by Barack Obama, the French first lady and other leading figures say it's high time for France to stamp out racism and shake up a white political and social elite that smacks of colonial times.
A manifesto published Sunday—subtitled "Oui, nous pouvons!", the French translation of Obama's campaign slogan "Yes, we can!"—urges affirmative action-like policies and other steps to turn French ideals of equality into reality for millions of blacks, Arabs and other alienated minorities.
"Our prejudices are insidious," Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, a singer and wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, which published the manifesto. She said she hoped the "Obama effect" would reshape French society.
Nations across Europe rejoiced over Obama's victory, seeing it as a triumph for American democracy and a world weary of President George W. Bush. But Obama's election also illustrated an uncomfortable truth: how far European countries with big minority populations have to go getting nonwhites into positions of power.
Grass-roots groups in France and Britain are trying to turn Obama's election into electoral gains for minorities at home. Sunday's manifesto suggests France's elites are taking notice, too.
"The election of Barack Obama highlights via a cruel contrast the shortcomings of the French Republic, and the distance that separates us from a country whose citizens knew how to go beyond the racial question and elect a man who happens to be black as president," the appeal said.
"What a lesson!" it went on. "We French ... should listen to it well."
The manifesto was written by Yazid Sabeg, a French self-made millionaire whose parents were Algerian immigrants, and signed by politicians from the left and right and other public figures.
Obama is extremely popular in France, yet blacks and other minorities are nearly invisible in national or local politics here. The lower house of parliament has 555 members from the French mainland; just one is black.
"We shouldn't be surprised that Obama's popularity is so high here: It testifies to the aspirations of all the children of France who are experiencing by proxy a recognition that France does not give them," the manifesto reads. "It also betrays the bad faith of those who welcome the victory of modernity outside our borders, in order to tolerate the status quo here."
The manifesto calls for affirmative action policies like those the United States used years ago to encourage greater minority representation in the workplace and in universities.
Sarkozy has suggested affirmative action for France, but later backed away from the idea since it goes against France's ideals of egalitarianism, which dictate that the country not classify its citizens according to race. This idea that everyone is just "French" means there are no census or other national figures calculating how big the country's minority groups are.
The manifesto urges term limits to make way for more minority candidates, and presses the government to improve schools in working-class neighborhoods.
That appears to be a reference to housing projects heavily populated by nonwhite immigrants and their families, areas that erupted in riots in 2005 by disenfranchised youth, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants.
Critics say the tough-talking Sarkozy fanned discrimination ahead of the riots. Manifesto author Sabeg slammed efforts under Sarkozy to help minority neighborhoods as "an empty shell."
Bruni-Sarkozy said she couldn't sign the appeal because of her status as first lady but that she fully supported it. She is quoted in the Journal du Dimanche as calling Obama's election "an immense joy."
The Italian-born first lady exhibited optimism in her adopted land, saying Sarkozy's ethnically mixed background is a sign that France is open to change.
"My husband is not Obama. But the French voted for the son of a Hungarian immigrant, whose father has an accent, whose mother is of Jewish origin. (Sarkozy) has always considered himself as a bit of a Frenchman from elsewhere," Bruni-Sarkozy is quoted as saying.
She also took a dig at the prime minister of her native Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, for saying last week that Obama is "tanned." The often impolitic and suntanned Berlusconi defended it as a compliment, but Bruni-Sarkozy saw the situation differently.
"I'm very glad to have become French," she said.
In France currently all French citizens are equal under the law and the country keeps no race statistics, because to do so was always thought to go against the idea that everyone is equal and there are no divisions between French citizens.
Yeah that works out greeeeat.
You keep no stats, yes you don't divide people legally but you also can't prove systemic discrimination based on race.
Affirmative action in France will have the same effect is has had in the U.S.: it will benefit the better off of legally disadvantaged groups.
The condition of people who live in France's public housing won't change substantively and their prevailing condition will be used as justification for doing more to help them, though the policy in place isn't designed for their particular uplift.
Many people don't realize this, but "affirmative action" programs have been adopted by many countries around the world beginning as far back as the 70s and 80s.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Wed 12 Nov 2008 14:47 Post subject:
G-Man wrote:
Affirmative action in France will have the same effect is has had in the U.S.: it will benefit the better off of legally disadvantaged groups.
The condition of people who live in France's public housing won't change substantively and their prevailing condition will be used as justification for doing more to help them, though the policy in place isn't designed for their particular uplift.
Many people don't realize this, but "affirmative action" programs have been adopted by many countries around the world beginning as far back as the 70s and 80s.
The most interesting ones are like in Malyasia where the ethnic Malay ( bumiputra) gave themselves affirmative action to compete with the Chinese and Indians...
I try to imagine whites giving themselves AA to compete with blacks and Hispanics in America...
Affirmative action in France will have the same effect is has had in the U.S.: it will benefit the better off of legally disadvantaged groups.
The condition of people who live in France's public housing won't change substantively and their prevailing condition will be used as justification for doing more to help them, though the policy in place isn't designed for their particular uplift.
Many people don't realize this, but "affirmative action" programs have been adopted by many countries around the world beginning as far back as the 70s and 80s.
The most interesting ones are like in Malyasia where the ethnic Malay ( bumiputra) gave themselves affirmative action to compete with the Chinese and Indians...
I try to imagine whites giving themselves AA to compete with blacks and Hispanics in America...
It's actually used in Malaysia against the Chinese who are historically less privileged but more successful than the Malay population. The Indian population is, from what I understand, poorer than either of the two other communities and they have less political clout as well. Needless to say, they receive no AA benies from the gov't.
In South Africa it could be argued that Apartheid was an attempt by Afrikaner politicians to initiate preferential policies, including affirmative action-type policies, for the benefit of the Afrikaner population. Both Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams make this argument.
Affirmative action-type policies have been employed in India and Sri Lanka (for the benefit of the Sinhalese majority) since not too long after independence from Great Britain.
Originally posted by meninarmer:
[QB] The Court usually goes though this entertainment whenever a new ethnic group migrates to the US.
In the 1980s white Mexicans went to the Supreme Court to be designated as minorities and lost.
It mainly has to do with Affirmative Action and these new groups applying for AA programs.
Although the Courts awarded AA programs to minorities consisting of Women (including white) and African Americans, today approximately 93% of these programs are awarded to white Women, disabled white men, Asians, and white Russians with maybe 2% awarded to black men.
What these groups usually hope to get access to, is this SBA AA program.
THE SBA 8(a) PROGRAM
The Program The 8(a) program name is from Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act. The Act, as amended by Congress, created the 8(a) program so the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) could help small companies owned and operated by socially and economically disadvantaged persons develop their businesses.
One of the business development tools of the 8(a) program is the award of Federal contracts. Under the program, SBA acts as a prime contractor and enters into contracts with other Federal Government departments and agencies. In its role as a prime contractor, SBA awards subcontracts for their performance by certified companies. [/QB]
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