Introduction

In this early 21st century, genuine communication about the poisonous effects of the dominant racial frame on both Blacks and Whites and the inconvenient truths delivered by the disalienating counter-frames created by people of color requires safe spaces. The anonymity of social networks covers unapologetic, even resurgent, expressions of racial bigotry and anti-Semitism in both countries. In France as well as in the USA, White elected officials again bandy about overtly racist rhetoric, normalizing and legitimizing race-based prejudice among voters and even liberal critics. In France, the latest statistics on intermarriages (commonly known as “mixed marriages”) indicate 14% of all unions performed in 2015, that is, 33,800 out of 236,300. As the Canadian sociologist Danielle Juteau explains, the stubborn refusal by France’s White elites to consider and even scientifically discuss the real implications of race and ethnicity as social constructs has strong political underpinnings.