Like me, they were refugees, in their case fleeing from the flabby belly of uncouth white American racism, straight into the bosom of self-satisfied, self-congratulatory Parisian racism. When I tried my French on them, the quartet’s leader had shaken his head and whispered, No, man, we can’t speak French. I mean, we can speak French, but we don’t speak it here. Or when we do, we got to speak it badly, like Americans, get me? If we speak good French, they’ll think we’re Africans. They treat us great when they think we’re Americans, but when they think we’re Africans— They treat us like shit,
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