Based on the articles of Matthew Jordan, André Levinson, Henry Louis Gates and Karen C.C. Dalton, I think it is hard to argue that the majority of parisians respected and loved African American artists as some of us may love some of our favorite artists today. Once I began reading about Negrophilia I came to realize that the name is not quite fitting, as parisian views of African Americans were far from love and respect of African American culture but more of an art seen as a threat to French society by some and by others, a fetishized desire for a new, unheard of and “primitive” entertainment.
levinson and Bizet were candid in their opinions by saying it was an “innate gift not a conscious art, was an assault and virus on French taste and artistically inferior”. These attitudes strengthened frances nationalistic identity by creating an imaginary heircahry based off of steotypical “less developed” nations that put French culture at the top. It also defends France’s colonial history by claiming to be improving these other exotic cultures with their Frenchness. He also didn’t see black music as giving to European music but instead that black dances were becoming less primitive and more complex as they received European help. Even if parisians did love what they were watching the sense of ownership, minstrelsy and forced self exoticism of the art leads us to believe that Parisians didn’t love or respect African American artists, but instead loved what white parisians thought african american artists should be.
