Race, History, & Colonialism

In 2020, people began gathering in the United States and all over the world to resist systemic racism, inequality, and state violence following George Floyd’s murder. Belgium, the country that Chez Jolie is filmed in, also suffers from these social and political ills. A consistent thread in the film that can be heard, observed, and felt is the lasting presence of colonialism and racism. Through masterful filmmaking and community connection illuminated in the film, audiences are asked to witness the ways that the white gaze - connected to histories of colonization - continues to impose its dominance and power. In Chez Jolie, audiences are introduced to Belgium’s colonial racist past. Belgium’s history of racism and colonialism cannot be discussed without referencing Leopold II,, the Beligian King who owned the country of Congo as personal property. The understanding of Belgium’s historically racist past cannot be conceptualized without considering the prominence of the country’s colonial whiteness that is still looming over the country. As communities organize to resist white supremacy in 2020, the global reach of racism is evident: while monuments memorializing Confederate generals were brought down in the US, Belgium dismantled their statue of Leopold II.

As a colonizer, Leopold II was responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese people more than a century ago. His identity has been preserved and celebrated through dominant narratives and in more conspicuous ways in the form of monuments, statues, and buildings in the city of Brussels and throughout Belgium. He was remembered as someone worthy of celebrating despite the pain and trauma he caused Black people in Belgium from the African diaspora. Over time, Leopold II has been seen as a stain on the nation of Belgium, but the violence he imposed on Africans and Black people can still be felt and experienced in the racist attitudes present in Belgium. In the film, we are able to sense some of the ways these anti-Black ideas persist and continue to threaten and violate the rights and humanity of African residents in Brussels, including undocumented people from the continent of Africa.

Matongé: A home for African Residents in Brussels, Belgium

Chez Jolie is filmed in Sabine’s salon which is located in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. In Brussels there is an area called Matongé, which is where Sabine’s salon is located. The area came to be in the late 1950s when an influx of Congolese students began visiting Belgium, a hub for African residents. Since then Matongé has developed into an African quarter. This development only happened after Congo gained their independence in 1960. Nowadays, the space is a place where African and black residents find solace and community and also where tourists frequent. Matongé neighbors one of the richest shopping districts in Brussels and, because of this, tensions of race, class and belonging run rampant. Matongé has long suffered from a reputation of crime, but black citizens and African residents of Brussels describe the area as a home away from home and one of the safe places for them in the city.

So, amidst the dual pandemics of systemic racism and the novel-coronavirus, like many communities in 2020, people of Brussels are confronting how certain groups of people have been pushed to the outskirts while colonial and racist histories prevail. In Brussels residents have demanded the removal of Leopoald’s II statue in order to recognize that a lot of modern-day Belgium was developed at the expense of the lives and labor of Black people under colonial rule. The violence of colonization and historical legacy of white supremacy is not taught in the history books or schools in Belgium. In Belgium, there is a failure to acknowledge the country’s colonial and racist past and involvement in the slave trade. The absence of historical reckoning and responsibility-taking with regards to the violence inherent to Belgium’s founding is evident in the statues that persist, the raids of undocumented African residents, the history that goes without discussing, and the violent white gaze from tourists who visit the one place, Matongé, that African residents have in Brussels. Sabine and her community have cultivated a community, a place of relative safety, and a place to nurture belonging in Matongé—the creation of this community is a reclamation of space and place and power, and it also highlights the ways that freedom continues to be limited in contemporary Belgium.

Undocumented Immigrants & Migration

The term ‘undocumented immigrant’ refers to anyone residing in any given country without legal documentation. This could also mean a person residing in a country with an expired visa and/or without proper permission from the government. The human rights and social justice struggles in support of the rights of undocumented people around the world, Belgium included, is battle of a terrain, identity, and rights. Sabine and others who entered Belgium without national citizenship deserve human rights, justice, protections, and equity. Organizations like the Platform for International Cooperation for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) work to ensure the mobility for all and to ease the normal realities of undocumented people because they deserve dignified standards of living and human rights. Immigration laws and rights are rooted in human rights issues, and are not solely political issues. As we see in the film, Sabine and her peers are attempting to construct different conditions for themselves and their communities, but even on this aspirational journey, they are made to live in fear. Importantly, we must consider what conditions undocumented people are leaving and what possibilities they are migrating towards; we must remember that the decision to leave ones’ homeplace is never an easy one to make and brings its own degrees of struggle. Globally, there are a lack of protections and rights to ensure the safety of undocumented immigrants because often there are seen as “illegal” or “criminal” for entering a country without permission. In Belgium specifically, there is a lack of protections and basic rights for immigrants and people of color; therefore, undocumented immigrants from Africa in Belgium live within precarious realities.

The white gaze

The white gaze is a term that defines how Black (and non-Black) people of color are often trapped by the (limited) imaginations of white people. The gaze occurs when people view Black people and Blackness with the eyes and ideas of white eurocentrism and ethnocentrism, which posits whiteness as superior and better than all else. This is the basis for supremacist logic—whiteness is centered as the normal or the “good” culture, sometimes subconsciously, but manifests in policy, practice, society, schooling, and every other aspect of culture if not deeply interrogated. The white gaze shapes the value that white people, and other dominant groups, place on the lives of others. The white gaze shapes stories of history, of resistance, of domination. The white gaze, itself, is violent in its power to shrink others and its constant degradation of the “worthiness” of a Black person in relation to white standards.

The white gaze is decentered in Sabine’s story, but we see it peering through the windows. Sabine and those that visit her shop in Matongé attempt to exist in their own space free of this oppressive condition, but their capacity to thrive is constantly violated by white tourists and the immigration police—they cannot seem to safely escape this gaze and its constant threat. White people in Brussels, and worldwide, who view their culture as the better than and/or the quintessential culture are living out a legacy that is the consequence of white supremacy and colonialism. For this reason, it is important to consider whose cultures and stories are being shared and by whom. The power of this film is layered and dynamic - the entire film unfolds within the salon, the story of Black women by a Black filmmaker, the intimacy achieved, the joy, the centering of love and care - this is the story that is centered and framed. This is the process of refusing the white gaze, and brilliantly, Rosine Mbakam reverses the gaze - as viewers we are able to look upon the strangeness of those white tourists, the recentering of the Black experience from the point of view of that community is at the foundation of this story and the power of this community.

Nothing About Us Without Us

Nothing About Us Without Us, similar to the hip hop phrase For Us by Us (FUBU), is a mantra that became the rallying call for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Recently, other oppressed and marginalized groups have taken up this mantra to mean that movements, stories and change must center the people that the fight is for. Mantras turned movemenents turned action like we see with the Rosine and how she films Sabine is how black people can move away from the white gaze and create for and with those who have similar stories and experiences.