Maboula Soumahoro: My notoriety is a matter of duty, not pleasure
She likes Björk, reggae, rap, Caribbean music. She is particularly fond of Maryse Condé, but also of Édouard Glissant and Virginia Woolf, to name but a few. She is fascinated by the Americas.
Lecturer, Maboula Soumahoro is a civilizationist of the English-speaking world. She lectures in the United States and France, in Tours, where she teaches at the university. For the past 15 years, she has been interested in the African-American communities in the United States and the African diaspora.
More recently, she has focused on black European populations, as evidenced by her participation in an academic colloquium held for the first time in Europe, in Seville. An opportunity to recall that Spain and Portugal were the first countries trampled by African slaves. The teacher-researcher of Ivorian origin likes to get things done. She calls herself a determined person. Her voice translates to her faithfully. Solicited by the media, Maboula Soumahoro takes up underreported topics and becomes a spokesperson. This position is often perceived as militant, yet there are words like that she would gladly avoid! In schools, prisons, cinemas, neighbourhood houses, or TV studios, her interventions are diverse. The researcher has found and won her place there. This interview was conducted in 2018. In 2020 Maboula Soumahoro published an autobiographical essay: Le Triangle et l'Hexagone published by La Découverte.
How would you describe the world of research for a woman?
There are more women researchers in literature, languages and the humanities; they are poorly represented in the hard sciences. Even if the profession of lecturing is becoming more feminine, women are less present when the number of years of study is high. Men in couples are strongly supported by their spouses in their thesis or early career, the opposite is not as obvious. There are many women who are single or who make enormous sacrifices if they have the idea of pursuing this career. My entourage supported me, but in retrospect, I don't think I would have pursued my Ph.D. if I hadn't been single. Today I am not married and have no children.
What other obstacles have you experienced?
They were related to the social issue since I come from an extremely modest background, and racially, as a black woman. "Is that you the professor? The organizer of the conference?" and so forth. It's always about legitimacy. Being poor and going to graduate school means working, especially since I didn't have a doctoral scholarship. I did a lot of odd jobs. I was afraid of succeeding or succeeding too much. When you are a social defector and you move from one social class to another, there can be a lot of guilt and a sham syndrome. These are all things that we put on ourselves. Today it's very different! The fight has changed, it's a question of having my legitimacy accepted. Because the societal brakes are real. My legitimacy may be questioned but I have gained confidence.
Yet you have gained notoriety!
It may sound strange, but I didn't look for it. The invitations to the shows fell on me. My goal was to get a degree, teach, and travel. I spent part of my life in the United States and reflected on my personal and family life and social issues. When I returned to France, I began to get requests to take part in public debates. I was already interested in social justice issues. When I intervene in the public sphere it is to say something from my background and my black identity. I want to normalize a certain discourse, my presence, and the presence of people like me. In any case, this notoriety is work for me, it is a duty and not pleasure. I could be anonymous and live it very well.
What were your last media appearances about?
In June, we did a news roundup with other speakers on LCI. We talked about an Iraqi refugee suspected of being a Daesh executive; how did he manage to get into France? What about the reception of migrants? We also talked about the G7, universal income and the increase in VAT for restaurant owners.
What is your opinion on universal income?
I'm all for it, but I'm not a politician. What interested me in the discussion is that there is a debate about rich and poor, the assisted and the unassisted, the working and the lazy, fraud. For me, the term 'welfare' is like the term 'communitarianism', they are dangerous words. I don't know what assistantship is. I have the feeling that we are always interested in a minority who would benefit from the system, whereas the vast majority of poor people are people who work hard and try to live.
We cannot sell dreams, explain to citizens that if they do not consume and have no money, they are hardly human beings, and then accept that some people live below the poverty line or in the most extreme precariousness. Our society produces working poor people who will never earn enough to be able to live a decent life or take advantage of what our consumer society is supposed to offer. In this context, words like "handouts" always bother me.
This echoes the "crazy money", an expression used by Emmanuel Macron to talk about the budget that France would devote to social minima... Of course, it costs a lot to care for people who don't have money, but I think it costs even more, to be poor. Our societies are unjust and that is a fact. There are rich people because there are poor people.
You sometimes take part in very tense debates. On the Internet, some people accuse you of communitarian racism or anti-white racism. What do you say to that?
These are notions that don't exist, so there's no point in debating them. I find it arrogant, outrageous and completely hypocritical to use these terms in a society where people continue to say that races don't exist, that racial identities don't make sense. I know I'm being accused of a lot of things. I have no problem with being in the minority, I have no problem with that. I am not a racist and these debates show once again the ignorance and lack of culture on this issue of racism. We are going in circles. Racism is a system, it's not insulting or attacking someone, it's not an individual situation. A white person who doesn't feel good in his neighbourhood is not comparable to not getting a diploma, not having a comfortable socio-economic position, not getting proper health care or decent housing. People who use all this terminology have not studied the issue; racist thinking is my expertise.
Have you ever been threatened?
Usually, I am intimidated to keep quiet, to return to my country. There are insults, anonymous letters to tell me that they know where I live and phone calls. In the beginning, they affected me, sometimes I was afraid. However, I don't read comments on social networks now and I understand that what I say may not be pleasant to hear.
What does it mean to you to be a black woman in France?
One of the strangest paradoxes: being both hyper-visible (we're black and it shows) and completely invisible. There is total invisibility in the public sphere. It's being part of an unfavourable hierarchy that can be the basis of discrimination and exclusion. There are positions and places where you are expected and places where you are not expected. This is real. There is an imaginary built around this black identity: it is difficult to imagine a black boss, a black doctor. The only permanent contract I was offered was to be a building superintendent! If I were to advise new generations of black women, it would be to find ways to get what they want, not to compromise and to stay free.
In your biographies, it says that you consider yourself to be Afropean. What does that mean?
It's more like someone said it about me! In France, we have a lexical problem and a huge taboo on race and racial identities. There are a lot of words and experiences that we don't know how to say and describe. Still, there has been an effort made in recent years. Afropean identity has been popularized (not invented) by the writer Leonora Miano in her novels and essays. The Belgian group Zap Mama was already using it in the 90s. It is my understanding that the term is talking about the black populations indigenous to Europe: who were born in Europe and who are black. In France, black identity is always seen from the point of view of immigration, except that I was born in Paris, I grew up in France, I am not an immigrant. It's interesting to see how France clings to this immigrant identity. It's as if there's an impossibility to anchor people like me in French territory.
Why do you think that is?
Because France is having a hard time facing its history. People talk about the problems linked to integration and recent assimilation (over the last 40 years) as if they had fallen from the sky. As if these people came here by chance. Whereas, if we look at the history of France, we see that all these populations have been in contact with it for centuries. It immediately takes us to the history of colonization and slavery. These migratory waves can be explained; my parents are part of this postcolonial immigration.
And how do you view the reception of migrants in France today?
You can't conduct a murky foreign policy and then be surprised at the consequences of that policy. Of course, France has a responsibility; we're talking about populations who move around, who try to leave politically unstable countries and who are destabilized by the role played by the current great powers, of which France is a part. We should stop playing a role in the destabilization of these countries.
You defended your thesis 10 years ago. What have been the great satisfactions of your life and career?
My defense precisely. The creation of the Black History Month association. And the courses I was able to follow in the United States, the professors I met, the conferences I was able to attend. They opened me up to the world in a way that I've never known in France. Today, I continue to teach there. I think I'm quite torn because the content of my teaching is more important for France than for the United States. Work has already been done there, victories have been obtained but not in France so far. In the United States, I can work in departments that are established, whereas in France it seems that everything has to be built.
Finally, what are the actions of Black history month?
It implements a series of cultural events that revolve around the history, cultures of the black world and the diaspora. Its name refers to an event that already exists in the United States. The goal was to pay tribute to this African-American history and also to put the spotlight on France because here, one sometimes has the impression of being infatuated with African-American history. The aim is to provide a quality cultural offer, free to the general public and free of charge, around issues that are ignored or very little known. The black world is vast and rich.
Interview by Emilie Drugeon.
Photos by Patricia Khan