i don't have a better sense than you about what the hell is going on.

and now, for some quotes.

"This has nothing to do with religion," [a 28-year-old] said. "But non-Muslims are afraid of people like me with a beard. I look suspicious to them. Discrimination is all around us. We live it every day. It's become a habit. It's in the air." -washington post

"Certainly, as anybody would, we mourn the loss of life in these kinds of situations. But, again, these are issues for the French people and the French government to address." -u.s. state department spokesman Sean mcCormack. oh, america.

and finally:

"Paris n’est pas à feu et à sang, Paris dort sur ses deux oreilles, Paris vit dans sa bulle. Paris feint de ne pas voir les 400 voitures, les centaines de mètres carrés d'entrepôts à Garonor et le dépôt de bus de Trappes qui ont flambé cette nuit." -the parisist.

roughly translated (par moi): paris is not on fire and bloody--paris sleep on its two ears, paris lives in its bubble. paris pretends not to see the 400 cars, the hundreds of square meters of warehouses in garoner and the deposits of buses of trappes that were blazed tonight.

living in the center of paris, one would have absolutely no idea of les émeutes (the riots) going on in the very nearby suburbs. it is rather shameful. meanwhile, i spent last night in montmartre having dinner with erica and erica's french friend pauline. i'm not sure if pauline was a typical french girl--i think she comes from outside of paris but lives in paris now, but she didn't want to go to oberkampf last night because i think she thought the area was unsafe. so i realized she was a bit paranoid. but not once, but twice, when we passed different bars we considered going into, she said no, because she didn't like who she saw inside. "there are a lot of mexicans in there". she didn't say it quite that badly, but it was clear that these immigrants made her very nervous--xenophobia and racism have clearly penetrated.

i asked her about the riots and she just seemed to think it was kind of sad, but i didn't get the impression that she cared too much. we talked about a lot of things (all in french, of course) and got into the american dream, which i said i don't believe exists, and how when we read books like gatsby we were taught such things. she told me she'd be taught the opposite and believes in the american dream, although a bit less now since she lived in new york for a while.

the caretaker of a gym in these divisive suburbs said this: "We don't have the American dream here," said Rezzoug, as he surveyed the clusters of young men. "We don't even have the French dream here."

for more on relations in the banlieue (suburbs), watch the film "la haine" or "hate" in english.