ABSTRACT
One major difference between the two societies is the importance of racial politics in outsiders’ and relatives’ reactions to the existence of interracial couples in their kinship or racial group. The concept of “race traitor” is unique to U.S. society and the implications of accusations of “selling out” or cultural appropriation in the Black American community are much more wide-ranging than in France, precisely because of the taboo attached to the notion of community in that country and because of the specificity of its slaveholding and imperial past. Respondents’ experiences with embracing the other culture are inseparable from these histories, even though these couples insist on being considered as individuals, not representatives of an oppressor or subordinate group.
