Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor and chair of the Department of French and Francophone Studies at UCLA. He is the author or co-author of numerous books including Black France (2007), Africa and France (2013), Colonial Culture in France since the Revolution (2014), The Invention of Race (2014), and Vers la guerre des identités (2016). He is the editor of the Global African Voices series at Indiana University Press.
Alain Mabanckou. Photo by Shevaun Williams
On March 19, 2006, the French daily newspaper Le Monde published an article I wrote entitled “La francophonie, oui; le ghetto, non.”1 My intention…