Differences in America - A first impression

Americans have a very healthy reaction to diversity, to difference: it’s a flat, almost uninterested one! You’re Asian? Black? White? Caucasian? Arab? Muslim? Buddhist? Unless you’re a really weird bloke, dressed in a swimming suit all year long because your religion says so, you’ll soon find a quasi-generalised indifference.

That’s fantastic. Freshly coming from a country - I will not mention the country’s name in order not to vex Dominique de Villepin :) - where conformism seems to be the official and unofficial goal, it’s a nice feeling to be disregarded for what to you are. You’re not expected to speak like the others, to dress like them, to eat like them. France has de facto ceased to be multi-cultural and is now evolving to a model where people will be expected to bleach their skin the day they decide to take a French residency permit (or if they’re born French). Even French Blacks, from the French islands, know it. Gaston Kelman, black Frenchman (Bourguignon, s’il vous plait) wrote that ‘even if he lived there all his life, a black man in continental France will always be an ‘insular’ (un antillais, to be more precise). A white man from the Islands, on the contrary, will always be considered as ‘French’. (Gaston Kelman, “Je suis noir et je n’aime pas le manioc, editions Max Milo, whoever borrowed this book I want it back!)

In the US, ask this cute Indian-looking six years old where he’s from, and don’t be surprised if he replied ‘Fresno, California’ with a Calcutta accent and with the candour and freshness of a morning mist. Tina, veiled Muslim whose origins I don’t know, is from Michigan. Full stop. No further explanation she will give; no further explanation I want to know.

An important remark, here: it’s not always true. Naaaaa. There is also ordinary racism, there is segregation at work and housing, there are dirty looks when you’re the only black man in a boat club. But still, the US remain a place where, even if they whisper behind your back sometimes, (they won’t do it to your face most of the time).

Never thought I’d say it -- Thank you America!