Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme

The urban riots in Paris are upsetting to me - not merely because of the French government's failures or the general societial issues behind the larger story - it's also a Grade A Prime example of Fresh Hell.

I won't point any readers in the direction of mainstream media stories on this event - even a cursory glance at the Internet or established American news outlets can serve as adequate reportage of the facts.

What bugs me entirely are many blog offerings from [perhaps] well meaning yet completely ignorant Americans who, based on the story, have written some of the most cringe inducing venom I've ever read. I will certainly not point to any of this either - I'm a fan of free speech and bloviating in general, but please, get up off your ass and find it yourself.

However; in my mind, unless you are:

a) a participant in this unfortunate melee with a point of view - any man on the street witnessing will do, no matter its bias, simply because it is based on individual experience and thus provides some jumping off point to further engender discussion and possible change, or

b) a historian whose specialty is post WWII to present day France, who possess a thorough grounding in the history of the colonization policies of earlier centuries and the economic and cultural difficulties arising from said colonization, including the implications involved in current immigration practices,

Do us all a favor and get educated or, failing that, Kindly.Shut.Up.

Since I am neither of the above, I will attempt to avoid the Pompous by drawing a rather poor analogy. In the following completely imaginary exercise, please feel free to insert neutral gender pronouns to your own personal satisfaction.

Imagine that, in 2005, you are 21 years old. You, and your father, were both born in America. Your grandfather was not, but emigrated there as a young man in the hopes of providing for his family and their future. You don't have a language barrier, and frankly neither did your grandfather, due to the peculiar relationship of Grandpa's home country to the emigrated one.

Further imagine that instead of a melting pot, or new and improved opportunities and circumstances, your grandfather and father were relegated to "second citizen" status, and couldn't find any work other than menial jobs.

As a result of these poor jobs, you grew up in a ill designed apartment highrise, a block of urban projects, instead of the pleasant suburban home to which Grandpa aspired. Now, thankfully, as a result of the government, you aren't completely desitute. There have been government benefits, enough to keep you in shoes and eating bread, and while the schools you've attended haven't been horrible, they have at least been tolerable. However, there is no way you could attend a university, and the trade schools at which you could study to earn a decent living have very few spaces available. And curiously, or perhaps not, as you get older you find out that there is subtle [or not so subtle] bureaucratic discrimination against you and your fellows, based on your last name.

Imagine if your name were O'Donovan? Or McAllister?

There WAS a period in American history that did present as discriminatory to ethnic people with these and similar names, but shh...maybe if no one brings it up no one will remember.

Back to the imaginary: What if you were born into a family of a certain religious persuasion, but you viewed your participation in it as more casual than others perceive it to be? For example, your Gramps was the religious one - your Pops pretty much pays lip service and maybe you don't consider it all that much. Yet the others, the "first class citizens" in your society, automatically assume you are ferociously religious at each opportunity that your last name arises?

What if you and your immediate neighbors experience 40% unemployment? What if there are no jobs for you and your friends at all, anywhere? Might a gang or the lure of drugs seem, in their desperate dangerous way, after all you may have considered, a way out? Might torching a car [time honored European Angry Student Response] also mean something?

I don't pretend to have all the answers to this extremely complex problem, but it's simply not something your average American seems to be able to wrap their minds around. After all, it's not happening here.

And until you can take that leap of the imagination and thoughtfully consider the ramifications of a society of any nominally democratic country that continues to treat second or third generation immigrants as less than full citizens, then you have no seat at the table of the world.