EXHIBITION ON SLAVERY CAUSES UPROAR IN PARIS

An exhibition at Paris’s Quai Branly Museum has come under fire for its descriptions of slavery and racial discrimination in the United States. In a booklet that accompanied the exhibition, which is titled “The Color Line,” the lifestyle of certain slaves was described as “pleasant.” Elsewhere there were claims that discrimination based on skin color ended in the US in 1964.

Earlier this month the website Afropunk published portions of the booklet, which was geared toward children, in order to highlight its many errors and troubling tone. According to Le Monde, one part of the text stated that Africans participated in the slave trade, a claim used in certain French political circles to minimize Europeans’ role in slavery.

Afropunk got a hold of the booklet during a preview of the exhibition, but the Quai Branly claims that this uncorrected version was pulled before the show’s public opening the following day. Acknowledging the exhibition’s sensitive subject matter in light of the controversy, the Quai Branly released the following statement: “An exhibition like ‘The Color Line,’ will undoubtedly cause a debate in France today. . . . To evoke segregation in the United States draws attention to racial discrimination and struggles for equality that are ongoing worldwide issues.”