Too Black to Be French

Isabelle Boni-Claverie, Joshua David Jordan

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781531514785
  9781531508081
• eBook ISBN:
  9781531508098
• Edition: 1
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Winner, Grand Prize, French Voices Award

In Too Black to Be French, Isabelle Boni-Claverie navigates the complexities of identity, race, and family in a world that constantly questions her belonging. Boni-Claverie's singular account interweaves the extraordinary life experiences of three generations of her family: her grandfather from Ivory Coast, who married a middle-class white woman from southern France in the 1930s; her biological parents, and her mixed-race aunt and white upper-class uncle who adopted her; as well as her own life as a successful film director and writer faced with abiding stereotypes and discrimination.

Written with humor and aplomb, Boni-Claverie's narrative examines the enduring effects of France's colonial past and the deep-seated structural prejudices affecting Black people in a country that prides itself on stories of its hospitality toward African Americans fleeing segregation. Updating this picture to reveal the complexities and challenges of being Black in France where discussion of race is often taboo, Boni-Claverie offers an American readership rare insights into racial dynamics on both sides of the Atlantic.

Too Black to Be French is at once a sociological portrait of France, a multicultural family album, and a transatlantic coming-of-age story. It will appeal to readers eager for a passionate fresh voice devoted to better understanding the challenges of today's world and the courage it takes to overcome them. Through vivid storytelling, Boni-Claverie invites readers to traverse a path filled with emotional depth, cultural introspection, and a quest for acceptance.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. If Only You’d Been Lighter
• 2. A Black Princess and White Nannies
• 3. You Will Play Balthazar, My Dear
• 4. Does Class Erase Race?
• 5. A “Little French Girl” in Ivory Coast
• 6. My Grandfather, Alphonse Boni
• 7. Slavery and the Holocaust: Why I Am a Humanist
• 8. When My Grandmother Married a Black Man
• 9. An “African Girl” in Bordeaux
• 10. What Color Is the French Language?
• 11. Why Race Trumps Class
• 12. Alphonse and Rose-Marie: A Mixed-Race Couple in the Colonies
• 13. A Little Story About Discrimination
• 14. My First Black Role Models
• 15. The Adventure of Revue Noire
• 16. French “Integration”
• 17. Where Are You From?
• 18. Coming Out of the Race Closet
• 19. Good Hair
• 20. Alphonse’s Dilemmas
• 21. Fault Lines
• 22. French TV: Keeping Out the Color
• 23. The White Norm
• 24. Run, Black Man, Run!
• 25. The Guerlain Affair
• 26. The Three Fears
• 27. On the Advantage of Being White
• 28. In It Together
• 29. That’s a Wrap
• Notes
• About the Author