Difference

1. In the United States, black Americans are the typical targets of discrimination. In

France, the victims are usually Arab immigrants. In both cases, prejudice against

minorities has less to do with the color or national origin of the ostracized than with

the need of whites and natives to preserve their own sense of moral self-worth.

Same

1. Both France and the United States had revolutions that championed equal

treatment, freedom, democracy and human rights, and each has claimed a special

destiny as an exemplary nation.

2. Both societies have produced high levels of racial violence and hatred. The French

historian Michelet once described France as a “universal fatherland” whose role was

to “help every nation be born to liberty.” More recently,9 out of 10 Americans told a

national survey that we should teach our children that America from its beginning

“has had a destiny to set an example for other nations.” Yet both societies have

produced high levels of racial violence and hatred.

3. In the United States, the progress to full equality for African Americans has been

exceptionally slow and painful. Over the past 50 years, though the movement to

integrate blacks into American society has celebrated many victories, racial

segregation persists. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard recently found that school

segregation has increased since 1986, and rates of black marriage to non-blacks

remain low. In France, 28 percent of voters have supported the openly racist,

antiSemitic and xenophobic National Front political party at least once since it

became a national player in 1983.