Nevertheless, Paris is a bibliophile’s paradise. One of my favorite pastimes is to browse the antiquarian bookstalls along rue Saint-Honoré. I nearly wet my panties when I spied a first edition of a title by Sidonie-Cabrielle Colette, best known by her pseudonym COLETTE. I also found bizarre out-of-print hardcover comic books that contained grossly stereotypical images of Black folks, including jet-black hued skin, bone through the nose, red lipped, white eyed characters.
A French white fellow standing nearby had such a fit of nostalgia when he saw the comic books I didn’t quite know what to do. Pointing at the “jigaboo-like” character on the cover he exclaimed, “Bibi Fricotin! As a child, I loved Bibi Fricotin!” Alright, dear readers look for yourself:
Nuff said. I didn’t want to burst his bubble and inform him that I was interested in the books because they were so taboo and racists. I wanted them as evidence of white French denial about racial oppression and past colonial domination. I let it slide. It’s telling that a word that seems to be reclaimed by some hip-hop youth, in a similar manner to how the N-word is reclaimed in the states, is the word “savage”–as in “savage resistance”, “savage attitude”.
Visitors to Paris in February might be interested in seeing an exhibit by a Black queer feminist activist from Italy named Veruska Bellistri. Bellistri (Rome) and Stephanie Muller (Berlin) collaborated on an art/sound installation entitled RAG DOLLS: Beauty and Blackness. The installation is part of the calendar of events for le Festival FULGURANCE hosted by l’Espace Canopy.
All dolls are named after characters from African American novels that describe what it means to grow up in a white world. Poems, songs and selected passages from Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye and Bell Hook’s Bone Black: Memoirs of a Girlhood are presented by the dolls as well as their own personal experiences. (QCC website)
The list of dolls names include Jabberwocky Baby, Beloved, Sula, Pecola, Po, Tashi, Willa Mae, Tar Baby, Cypress, Precious Jones. Well-read folks will recognize these as characters from the works of Toni Morrison, Marci Blackman, Alice Walker, Jamaica Kincaid, Ntozake Shange and Sapphire.
I will return to my mistress in the fall just in time for the Paris Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival and Africolor Arts Festival. J’adore Paris.
Skye’s Paris Photo Album | Skye Links: France
February 19th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I am so in love with Paris! I always have been. It is one of my dreams to visit and eventually live part-time in Paris. I really enjoyed Skye’s commentary. It was very informative and lively.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
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[…] only been a couple of weeks since my last trip to Paris. How nice to return to my Mistress so […]