"My 1st identity check"
1 2019-04-30T07:40:42+00:00 Tyechia Thompson 51961cf661a6fd012f289d19ce56a839e787d137 13 3 "My First Identity Check" is a series of five-minute short stories in which French rap stars tell us about the first or worst identity checks they had to undergo. plain 2019-06-16T19:48:42+00:00 Tyechia Thompson 51961cf661a6fd012f289d19ce56a839e787d137This page is referenced by:
-
1
media/18th .jpg
media/Screen Shot 2016-03-27 at 5.49.39 PM.jpg
2018-12-03T10:52:01+00:00
Barbès
71
“In African and Arab Barbès, police harassment of the citizenry was a daily occurrence”.
image_header
2019-06-28T11:12:21+00:00
48.8882655, 2.3493383
From Ricky’s perspective, “cops were the same everywhere” (43). This perspective is shaped by his residence in the Eighteenth Arrondissement. The narrator highlights Barbès as the area where Ricky experiences and witnesses police harassment in Paris. The narrator writes, “In African and Arab Barbès, police harassment of the citizenry was a daily occurrence. Ricky had been stopped by officers a few times in his years in the Eighteenth Arrondissement,” and they demanded he show his papers (43). The passage suggests that there is frequent harassment of African and Arab people in the Eighteenth, and Ricky is profiled and included in the “random” carte nationale d’identité checks.
The Parisian officers demanding Ricky’s papers in the Eighteenth are not much different from USA. officers questioning Ricky’s right to be in his wealthy Benson, New Jersey, neighborhood. The implication behind the officers’ actions in both situations is that Ricky does not belong. The officers challenge Ricky’s right to be in Benson and in Paris without proper “validation.” Though Ricky is without official papers (his tourist visa is expired), he is excused because of his USA. passport. As such, the narrator explains that “Black folks from the United States were generally treated with respect here” (44). In this passage, the words from the United States and here qualify that not all “black folks” are treated with égalité and respect in Paris. In the USA., Ricky is profiled because of his race and perceived class, and comparatively Ricky is profiled in Paris because of his race and perceived nationality. The relationship between race and nationality is at the center of African Americans’ privilege in Paris, which is made explicit in Rendezvous Eighteenth.