" What a shame ! "Don't let this race-obsessed woman smear Josephine Baker's memory", "A viperine text" ...
These are just a handful of comments inspired by the platform that the anti-racist activist and feminist, or at least which presents itself as such, publishes in the
Washington Post
. Its title?
"Don't let the inspiring story of Josephine Baker erase the pervasive racism of France."
To read also Josephine Baker: the journey of an "Immortal", from the ghettos of Missouri to the Pantheon
The activist recognizes that the singer, magazine leader and actress undoubtedly deserves this honor to enter the Pantheon, France, according to her,
“should not take advantage of this moment to congratulate itself on its treatment of people of color”
. She continues, pushing her usual and hopeless separatist credo further:
“Baker's story is often used in France to advance the myth of a republic supposedly more welcoming to blacks than the United States. Indeed, throughout the twentieth century, France built this narrative by welcoming many African-American artists, including Sidney Bechet, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Nina Simone and others who no longer supported oppression in the States. -United. "
So a myth. For which Joséphine Baker, according to Rokhaya Diallo, is responsible. Indeed, she deplores that the great Resistance singer that was the singer
"has always expressed her gratitude to France and has never criticized her colonialism".
This would also explain, she continues her Francophobic reasoning, that Emmanuel Macron preferred the one who said he was in paradise in France (his speech of 1963) rather than Gisèle Halimi, involved, she said, in
"anti-colonial activism in favor of the Algerian people during their war against France ”
.
She even sees Josephine Baker at the origin of a plot. Yes, according to the one who in 2018 at the UN platform affirmed that our country was plunged into state racism, the performances of the artist honored on Tuesday, November 30, would be
"part of the plan that shaped the 'image of the black woman in the French imagination'
. And to support his point which designates a dark scheme, the dance with the banana skirt which
"was designed to depict a stereotypical vision of Africa which indirectly celebrated the colonial objective and racist notions of white superiority".
Moreover, she notes again, Josephine Baker has never succeeded in the cinema.
"She was doomed to play the same role as the naive woman of color in love with a white hero who never loved her," she
laments.
Before attacking what she presents as an argument that would prove her right: Josephine Baker is celebrated even by Marine Le Pen.
Which, basically, disqualifies her from being a symbol of anti-racism.
Even though Baker was one of its most ardent advocates.
And Rokhaya Diallo concludes:
“At a time when immigration is at the heart of so much political tension, and when French people of color still face discrimination, it will take more than Baker's elevation to show that the republic has changed. "
