By Kitty Kelly-Epstein

Reminiscent of the Black Lives Matter protests over police killings of unarmed citizens in the U.S., France has been in the throes of national unrest in the wake of the police slaying of Nahel Merzouk in a Parisian suburb on June 27.

The police killing of Nahel, a 17-year-old French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan descent who lived in Naterre, one of France’s mostly Black and Brown cities, has led to days of protest all over France. Merzouk was shot in the chest at point-blank range at a traffic stop.

Merzouk’s slaying became a rallying cry among minority youth in France in much the same way that George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, had in 2020.

“We don’t forget, we don’t forgive,” crowds in Naanterre chanted as they denounced Merzouk’s slaying.

French President Emanuel Macron said the shooting death was “inexcusable and unforgiveable,” a rare response from authorities.

Two policemen on motorcycles chased Merzouk last Tuesday when they saw him driving a yellow Mercedes through bus lanes and didn’t stop until traffic blocked his progress.

The policeman who shot Merzouk initially reported that he had feared for his and his partner’s life, presenting as if the driver was going to run them over.

Trending

COMMENTARY: African American Culture Under Attack

But the story changed when video of the incident and witness statements fully contradicted the policeman’s assertions: Merzouk was shot at point-blank range at the driver’s side window and the video recorded a threat to shoot the victim.

“You are going to get a bullet in the head,” a voice is heard saying in the video, National Public Radio reported. And as the car moves forward, a single shot is heard.

On June 29, the officer was taken into custody where prosecutors have announced a preliminary charge of voluntary manslaughter. The officer has also apologized to the youth’s family.

Merzouk was an only child, studying to be an electrician, and in the words of his mother, “My best friend.”

After two days of unrest in the French cities of Amiens, Annecy, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Pau, Roubaix, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse, Tourcoing, Merzouk’s grandmother called for calm but the expression of outrage against police continued.

Some stores were looted, garbage cans and trucks and cars set on fire, with damages countrywide amounting to $1 billion.

More than 3,600 people have been detained in the country, most of them young Black and Brown youth like Nahel, whose funeral was July 1.

The response to the young people’s rebellion by agents of the French government has been the expression of more racism.

Two police unions issued a joint statement calling people in Black and Brown neighborhoods “vermin.”  In one suburb, a Right-wing deputy has demanded to change the name of the “Angela Davis School,” because she supported the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab or veil.

A fundraising page for the officer showed that 85,000 people donated a total of $1.7 million, while 21,000 made $450,000 for Merzouk.

And French protesters are already being sentenced in an “expedited process.”  One 58-year-old man was sentenced to a year in prison for picking up items off the pavement three hours after a store was looted. By comparison, during the same month a white man who sexually abused his granddaughters received a suspended sentence and no jail time.

Many in France’s Black and Brown communities are descendants of people from the French colonies who were encouraged to move to France to rebuild the country after World War II.

Like Black and Brown communities in the U.S. they are exploited for their labor and rejected when it comes to France’s famed “egalite” and “fraternite.”

France’s progressive parties support the issues of the protesters.

Danielle Obono is one representative of that coalition, NUPES.    (https://www.facebook.com/DeputeeObono.) Another source of information are Dr. Crystal Fleming’s tweets in French and English on these topics https://twitter.com/alwaystheself.

When George Floyd was murdered by U.S. police thousands of French people also protested.

Born M’bebe Mpessa in the German colony of Cameroon, Louis Brody (1892–1951) won over audiences during the early twentieth century as a prominent actor and musician. He appeared in over 30 films and eventually became the highest-paid Black actor within the German filmmaking industry.

Brody’s ability to survive during the Nazi era was considered “astonishing.” He was able to escape treatment common to non-Germans at that time: deportation, sterilization, mob lynching, and concentration camps. When the Nazi government denationalized him through the 1935 Reich Citizenship Law, he avoided persecution by acquiring French citizenship.

Throughout his life, Brody fought to improve the social conditions in Germany. He cofound the African Relief Organization (1918) in Hamburg. As spokesman, he decried racial discrimination and the violence and mistreatment of Blacks.

His expressed views and opinions during the fight for racial equality led him to the German Section of the League for Defense of the Negro Race. Brody also protested the propaganda unleashed against French colonial soldiers stationed in the Rhineland after World War I. Still, he needed to support himself.

Brody played parts in several German propaganda films throughout the war period: African chiefs and stereotypical roles such as servants, porters, and sailors. During World War II, he starred in 14 films including two that, according to Brody’s critics, “advanced Nazi propaganda and were inherently anti-Semitic.” Yet Brody was a skilled and versatile actor.

Trending

Memorial to Honor Pedie Perez on Anniversary of Fatal Officer-Involved Shooting

In several films, he impersonated Arabs, Malays, Indians, Moroccans, and Chinese. In fact, his calling card read: “Performer of all exotic roles on the stage and in film.”

While performing as a musician and wrestler, photos of Brody “exuded the energy of exoticism and racism seen in his film career.” According to German publications, Brody “couldn’t simply be an actor, musician, or wrestler; he had to be a Black actor, musician, and wrestler.” His career as an actor therefore faced significant obstacles, specifically with the subsequent rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

Little has been recorded about his early life in Cameroon (then Kamerun). He attended the German colonial school in Douala, where he learned to speak German. It is believed that he arrived in Berlin sometime between 1907 and 1914. He reportedly worked at several odd and low-paying jobs before landing an acting role. What motivated him to relocate there remains unknown.

As the German film industry expanded post-war, Brody took on supporting roles, most notably in the 1921 film “The Weary Death.” He also played the villainous Moor in the 1926 colonial film “I Had a Comrade.” By 1930, he had become the most visible Black actor working in German cinema. But the rise of Nazism would curtail his career.

Brody’s career slowed post war. Still, his life of advocacy for Black Germans and fame in cinema paved the way for other Blacks to gather acclaim within German culture.

Read more about Black Germans during the Third Reich in “Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich,” by Tina M. Campt.

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Vice President Kamala Harris’ historic trip to Africa continued with the launch of global initiatives on the economic empowerment of women, totaling more than $1 Billion.

America’s first Black and female vice president spoke fervently during the trip about how “immensely powerful and moving,” the visit to the Motherland was.

She further was moved while visiting Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle, where the vice president reflected on the painful horrors of where heartless slave owners captured their prey.

“The horror of what happened here must always be remembered,” Harris stated. “It cannot be denied. It must be taught. History must be learned.”

Harris and President Joe Biden have made outreach to Africa an important initiative of the administration.

In addition to Ghana, the vice president visited Tanzania and Zambia.

In each country, Harris touted investments that would bring economic and gender equity to Africa.

The vice president convened a roundtable with several African women business owners where the discussion centered on how America and private-sector businesses could form a partnership with African nations that would advance gender equality.

“Promoting gender equity and equality is a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in Africa and around the world,” administration officials said in a Fact Sheet.

Trending

Seniors Organize for Dignity at Sojourner Truth Manor

“Advancing the economic status of women and girls is not only a matter of human rights, justice, and fairness—it is also a strategic imperative that reduces poverty and promotes sustainable economic growth, increases access to education, improves health outcomes, advances political stability, and fosters democracy.”

The digital gender gap undermines women’s full participation in the 21st century economy, officials asserted.

Globally, approximately 260 million more men than women were using the internet in 2022—and this gap has increased by 20 million in the last three years.

The gap is especially acute across Africa, where International Telecommunication Union data show that sixty-six percent of women do not use the internet.

To address this disparity, Harris pledged that the administration would continue to work with other governments, private sector, foundations, and multilateral organizations to help close the digital divide, improve meaningful access to equitable digital finance and other online services, and address social norms that prevent women from participating fully in the digital economy.

More broadly, the Biden-Harris administration would continue to promote the economic empowerment of women, the vice president stated.

In support of those goals, Harris announced a series of investments and initiatives that total $1 billion.

She also made a series of announcements to foster women’s political, economic, and social inclusion in Africa, building upon initiatives launched at the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in December 2022, including the Digital Transformation with Africa (DTA) Initiative.

Harris made clear that education remains key.

She hammered home that point as a message to Republican governors who continue to ban history in school curriculums.

“All these stories must be told in a way that we take from this place — the pain we all feel, the anguish that reeks from this place,” Harris reflected as she traversed Cape Coast Castle.

“And we then carry the knowledge that we have may gained here toward the work that we do in lifting up all people, in recognizing the struggles of all people, of fighting for, as the walls of this place talk about, justice and freedom for all people, human rights for all people.”

She continued:

“So, that’s what I take from being here.

“The descendants of the people who walked through that door were strong people, proud people, people of deep faith; people who loved their families, their traditions, their culture, and carried that innate being with them through all of these periods; went on to fight for civil rights, fight for justice in the United States of America and around the world.

“And all of us, regardless of your background, have benefited from their struggle and their fight for freedom and for justice.”