Cheese eating...
There are thing that I don't understand. Well I just might be stupid. It's
always a possibility.But I would like people to explain me why french bashing is
such a popular part of American culture. Or may be it is just JU culture, but
for what I can't see from newspaper and the violence of some reaction when
france refused to send troop among the coalition in Irak.
Just let me list all the stereotypes I came accross :
- coward
- stupid
- stinky
- arrogant
- eating cheese
- drinking wine
- shallow
- hypocritical
- Anti-Semitic
-...
I don't really want to waste my time trying to make people change their mind.
I'm sure all of them have spend at least several year in France, are fluent in
Francais and that their expertise of my country is strong enough to build their
certainties. They might even justifying their attitude by picking what they
don't like in France foreign policy. Writing article with half truth, with a
pejorative spinning is easy.
It is also racist.
I'm not saying that you are racist because you criticize French government
action, policy or whatsoever. I wouldn't say that either if you attack
individual French people or tradition.
Don't get me wrong. For me, you are entitled to any opinion, you can say I'm
crap, after all I'm French, and for the French bashers that's almost all they
need to patronise me. But I know I can be crap for other reasons unrelated to
the fact that I'm french.
You are racist when you start to discriminate person for their belonging of a
different group. When you establish generalisation from independent factoids to
build negative cliché. or when you making the amalgam of French people and
France actions . If you could talk to French people, you will find out that French
are very critical about their government, exactly like in USA, and all the
democracies of the world.
But if you are a French basher, you probably won't see any interest in
actually confronting your belief with the reality. Racist jokes are actually
funnier and not too demanding for the brain
As a matter of fact, there is something similar in Europe, but it is aimed
against America. It is spread in all western European countries, and dressed in
a lot of cliché. Personally, I don't do anti-Americanism. By conviction and
because I'm fighting against easy generalisation. Even if I'm not supporting US
administration policy, I still make the difference with american people
Let me also tell you a short personal story. During my first year of England,
I was living in university accommodation, where they add this policy of
gathering foreigners altogether. I was effectively sharing my house with 3 English
lads, one Irish man, a Jamaican, a Trinidad lady, a Belgian girl and 3 American
girls. I'm a friendly person and I got along well with everybody more or less,
but my best friend was Mary-Beth, a young woman with curly blond hair and a
delicious Texas accent. She was very conservative, she had vote Bush and was
trusting his administration, we weren't agree on anything political, but we
shared a lot of good time and I really liked her. Much more than any European
people in my house.
Of course, I wouldn't believe all Texans are nice