Its hard to know where to start. If you have brown skin and have been just about anywhere you will know why. Its different for everyone abroad and for everyone abroad the interactions you have may be better or worse depending on those taboo topics like your gender, the gender of the people you date, your religion, the color of your hair, skin, and eyes.
I have brown skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. A monochromatic depiction of a half white half black American. And in America this has its pros and cons. I am somehow both integrated by both white people and black and yet fully accepted by neither. I am targeted by the extreme stereotypes of both races yet am a prime candidate to overcome them and prove the agent group wrong. At face value, I have a seemingly ambiguous ethnic origin and this makes me both exotic but also foreign. The list goes on. But the fact is that these are realities I have recognized and learned to accept over the course of twenty years. These are the realities that I have come to understand and what I understand is this: I look different. And I'm okay with that.
Being abroad every individual regardless of background must re-confront themselves, their thoughts, their opinions, their beliefs. I have spent nearly a third of my life abroad, and so assumed that after five years of childhood in Mali, a year of living in Egypt during the Revolution, three months in Jordan, back to Cairo and topped off by a short summer in Germany, Paris would be a cultural-adaptivity joyride--a breeze. This has not been the case.
An evening spent with an unfortunate group has strained the limits of my tolerance and has me edging towards an unfair prejudice against French people. I hope to let it pass, in the same way that I hope others forgive and forget their perceptions of Americans when they meet me. However, the inexcusable conversation, in brief:
My friend and I are standing outside of a bar in a large group of French kids, about our age. We came with three boys. They introduce us to their friends. One of them asks me what nationality I am. I respond American. He looks at me as if I have just slapped him in the face and asks again. Again, I answer American, this time adding that if he would like to know my ethnic background, he should ask. He doesn't seem to understand the difference between the two, despite speaking perfect, unaccented American, but to humor me asks my ethnic background. I say half black half white. Again, I receive another stare of disapproval and disbelief. He tells me that I cannot possibly be American. I tell him that both of my parents are American. He calls me a liar. My friend attempts to divert the conversation but at this point all seven sets of eyes are on me. The boy asks where my parents parents are from and then their parents. All American, I respond. His friend steps in and says frankly, "She's American. Half n***er." I tell him I don't use that word and that in America a lot of people would find it offensive, especially when used by someone they don't know. The conversation devolves to him explaining that he is one quarter black American and he lived for 2 months in Chicago, so its OK. I tell him that's fine if he wants to use it in his own friend group but that I find it offensive, so he shouldn't use it around me. I then am attacked on all fronts by 5 white French boys and one one-quarter black American, three-quarter white French boy all who attempt to convince me that I am wrong and they are right and that I shouldn't find the word offensive. This lasted all of five minutes, because at that point I realized I was arguing with walls, and dumb ones at that. So I leave.
I understand that these experiences can happen anywhere, and that being abroad I should expect to encounter these types of things. I just can't help but wonder how and why a group of well educated, young, progressive French people can't seem to exhibit any type of tolerance whatsoever, nor form any semblance of a coherent argument in the presence of disagreement. This is the most thick-skulled and rude I've ever seen, and I have been places opened my eyes and really truly seen.
And I'm disappointed. And will try to be optimistic. Tomorrow. But in all of the places I've been and all of the people I've met and gotten to know and enjoyed knowing, I am content for now to say that I like French people the least.
Sincerely,
Bitter, Brown, and Abroad