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Life In The Banlieues
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Melissa's Personal Observations
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Life in the banlieues varies greatly dependent upon what area one comes from, in just the same way that there are great variations in conceptions of the "ghetto" or the "inner city" in the US. In the area in which we worked, the physical surrounding seemed to be rather nice.
As is the case with most places, there were parts that were more run-down than others, yet on the whole it was nice, especially in comparison to other banlieue areas that we visited during our stay in Paris. We worked with two Socio-Cultural Centers (Centre Socio-Culturel a Louis Aragon et a Marc Sangnier) in the area.
Of course, an understanding of life in a banlieue extends far beyond the physical surroundings. In our interviews, one frequently repeated factor was the treatment of youth by the police. The cop arrests you, sometimes he insults you or smacks your head in, and after, you end up in front of the judge who finishes off the job by sending you for a rest- cure behind bars. For me, all that lot are working hand-in-hand to press us down even more, to smother us. - Karim, 21, from Marseilles, cited by Jazouli 1985, p55. 153. This type of behavior was very much the norm, rather than the exception. In Paris, many youth complained of the large groups of police officers that walked around on patrol, particularly on the trains. In the midst of an entire summer in Paris, we never once saw the policemen in anything smaller than a group of three. It was rumored that they traveled in such large groups because when they worked alone, they were constantly harassed, beaten and robbed by youth. Regardless of the reason, these large groups of officers often looked more menacing than any group of youngsters, and often they seemed to be more brutal * * * -Excerpt from jovonne's journal 7/4/02And they say that police are supposed to protect you? Here? I understand exactly why the kids hate them. On the RER, on our way home, this kid, black somewhere in his teens got on a minute or so before the train was supposed to leave. I only noticed him because I was sitting in one of the first seats facing the door and because when the train doors first started to close, he leaned out to keep them open. They opened and he leaned out, looking for someone I guess. I was a little perturbed, but oh well, typical Paris, someone holding up the train. His people still weren’t there. So when the doors started closing again, he stood in the doorway pressing the doors back so they wouldn’t close. I was thinking, “Yo, they’ll catch the next train. Get outta the door!” Just as the thought crossed my mind, two of the Nazi-like policemen they have patrolling the trains came up to the boy. One of them, saying nothing, wrenched him out of the door and pushed him hard away from the doorway. He kept pushing, even when the kid was out of the doorway, until the other had him in a near chokehold. Then he started shouting and poking him, while the other one kept tightening his grip, at point slamming the kid against the wall of the train, face first. I’m thinking to myself, “I know that I am not seeing this. Don’t they care that people are watching them?” Obviously not, because they kept pushing, poking and prodding the kid, all the while shouting at him and the boy continued saying something in reply … very little of which I could make it out. They continued shouting and pushing just as an older woman and a little kid (a boy I think), slipped onto the train just before the doors closed.
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The woman tried talking to them, but they really weren’t trying to hear her. Finally they wrote the boy one of their infamous fines. He had stopped arguing by this point, not that I had known what he was saying in the first place. All Ii knew was that I was heated. All of that, just because he held the train up a minute or two? That was ridiculous … they had beat up on the kid like he had stole something! I must have been giving them some sort of evil looks at them, because when they finally let him go, they looked down onto our car and one of them stared at me for a moment, expecting to look down or avert my gaze. I stared back. I was going to look down for him. He was lucky I didn’t speak French well enough to get up, tell him about himself and to take down his name and badge number to file a complaint. They moved on. At some point, I must have turned to Melissa, silently asking her to translate what they’d said. Just looking at her, I could see that she was at least as [upset], but she still answered, “He was trying to hold the door for his mother and little brother.” That was the last word spoken for the rest of the ride home. The movie, "La Haine" (Hate), by Matthieu Kassovitz, claimed to deal with the dynamic occurring between in the banlieue and the police. Set in the banlieue, the movie depicts a day in the life of three young men - one Arab, one Black and one Jewish - who are best-friends. Throughout the movie, the boys have several run-ins with the police, most resulting from no wrong on their part and nearly all brutal. Depicting one man's idea of the harsh realities of banlieue life, the film closes with the needless and careless shooting of one of the boys by a police officer.
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