This is based on an expression we have been hearing from the "far right" in Europe for a couple of decades. Europe has a "special relationship" with Africa. They tend to think of themselves as more enlightened, having avoided a century of slave plantations. But there is a conservative undercurrent. The "enlightened" and "fascist" lines have been drawn, and everyone assumes they know which side they are on.
So is it possible that Liberal Europe has defamed Geeks of Color in a widespread "profiling" campaign about "ewaste"? Surely not. Not socially conscious, liberal, environmentally sensitive, precautionary Europe.
But what Europe is also lacking is a century of integration following the abolition of slave plantations. The French were very relieved to have African American writer
James Baldwin hanging out in Paris for the last decades of his life, talking about how much freer he was than in Harlem. But he wasn't around much during the organizations of marches by Martin Luther King, and was pessimistic about whether America would ever pull off the integration.
The French have basked in the reassurances of Baldwin until "
The Fire Next Time" broke out in the riots in
streets of Paris in 2005. There was speculation whether a conservative backlash would - or did - occur in the electorate. Sarkozy was elected, Jean Marie Le Pen's party did not however get power.
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| Just saying |
My point - and it is a very delicate one - is that Europe has a little bit of a history of kicking the can down the road when it comes to integration, and of coming up with social theories without the benefit of a lot of discussion with the minorities closely involved.
I'm pointedly concerned about the latent "assumptions" of primitive behavior in the USA environmental movement, something I first addressed in "
E-Waste Soccer and The Accidental Racists" in November 2010. But I think Europe is worse, because they may assume "liberal" and "fascist" lines are all you need to know about trade, pollution, and exploitation.
My point is delicate because I may be a world minority (most people in the world are browner and darker haired than I) but I'm not one in the USA and can't pretend to share the insights of James Baldwin or Dr. King or Malcom X. It's also delicate because I'm married to a liberal French Professor in the politically correct Peoples Republic of Vermont (French professor in both senses of the words).
Europe's environmental community is susceptible to the assumption that environmentalists are racially hip and Jean Marie Le Pen is not. Europe does what some rural northern states in the USA are prone to do - cast the demons of racism into the redneck swine and assume they are above it. This leads the conservative anti-immigration segments in Europe to believe that "they are just saying out loud what everyone else is thinking but won't admit". What we call in the USA the "
NPR Juan Williams" crime.
"The Waste Makers" by Vance Packard