Jazz and...Racism?

Every Monday night at a local institution, Le Petit Nice, "jazz et boeuf" starts at 9 and continues until midnight. There's nothing overtly special about the place; its decoration is an odd collection of random memoribilia of the owner's, which can be summed up as nautically musical or musically nautical (old jazz posters, in English, sharing wall space with corroded anchors for example). Its chipped marbletop tables, wooden chairs, and red leather two-seaters, all arranged in an appropriately haphazard fashion, give the joint a neglected but laidback atmosphere. And it's for those reasons that I go there fairly often, whether for a coffee in the afternoon or a glass of white wine in the evening: the people are as mixed and interesting as the decor. There are rastafarians, musicians from the conservatory next door, stoners, office workers, writers, outdoor enthusiasts...yet all these (surface) differences are swallowed by thick clouds of smoke, as permanent as the place itself. At least this was my impression until last night. Let me first say that it seems to be very common, in France, for men of any age to offer a drink to a woman of any age before they've had a proper conversation. In fact, the proposal of a drink is a precursor to any sort of social interaction and/or intention. To not accept the drink is an insult, and depending on the personality and brains of the man a range of responses will follow: disbelief, chagrin, nonchalance, inflamed ego, claims of racism. Yes, you read correctly. I much prefferred the previous Monday night's Mr. Love Pepper (a man from Burkina Faso who was starting an organic aprohidisiac online company) to last night's man from Algeria who drove me and a friend away after 10 long, uncomfortable minutes. Apparently in his lexicon "no" means "yes" and vice a versa. What he, or his ego, didn't understand was that our refusals were not to be taken personal. Rather, it was the desire to listen to music, to talk to one another about girly things, to not be hassled, to not accept a drink that would then oblige us to continue talking, to enjoy the evening without being reminded that we were unaccompanied women, and on and on. Not long after we moved to another table, a woman who had until then ignored the fact that her male companions were chatting to us, approached us with a false air of congeniality and began to ask us a series of questions: Is it because we're Arab that you moved? Is it because of our origins? Was it when he told you his name (Khalid)? I could hear the tension in her voice, and so when she confessed to be "mal a l'aise," or "at unease," I wasn't surprised. I was shocked, however. Was this lady as blind as her friends? Didn't she understand, from one woman to another, what was going on? How could she not take into consideration the fact that we were foreigners, and therefore people who could understand what it's like to be seen as "different" or "other?" We assured her that, no, we were not racists. We were simply two friends who wanted to talk and to listen to music. She left, but not without throwing us a weary, mistrustful glance. I was obviously bothered by the whole thing, and didn't feel comfortable until they left a little bit later. The music played on, we turned down other offers; it was slowly forgotten. But rather than do what Khalid did and take it personally, I tried to view what happened objectively. The conclusion I reached was that I had witnessed what most foreigners, whether as tourists or expats, wouldn't normally witness: the racism that does exist in Marseille, the current tensions between the Arab, or specifically Maghrebian, and French communities, and the "unease" that seems to be reaching boiling point. Khalid and his crew were people who have probably experienced racism, real and imagined, and who have become increasingly aware of themselves and how others view them. It's sad. It's sad that racism exists but it's also sad that ordinary situations take on a murky, layered veneer, that even in the midst of music, laughter, and comraderie -- when labels should be stripped and problems forgotten -- one can feel so unprotected, so vulnerable. On second thought, maybe Mr. Love Pepper wasn't so bad after all.