Je voudrais être un noir

Nino Ferrer : Je voudrais être un noir
(also known as "Je veux être un noir" or "Je voudrais être noir")

Hey hey hey, Monsieur Wilson Picket
Hey hey hey, toi Monsieur James Brown
S'il vous plaît dites-moi comment vous faites
Monsieur Charles, Monsieur King, Monsieur Brown
Moi je fais de mon mieux pour chanter comme vous
Mais je ne peux pas grand-chose, je ne peux rien du tout
Je crois que c'est la couleur, la couleur de ma peau
Qui n'va pas
Et c'est pourquoi je voudrais
Je voudrais être noir
Je voudrais être noir
Hey hey hey, dis-moi Monsieur Faubus
Hey hey hey, dis-moi comment les blancs
Font pour vendre les nègres à l'Argus
Et pour en brûler de temps en temps
Et moi je fais de mon mieux pour ne pas y penser
Et je me sens très souvent très, très embarrassé
Par la couleur de ma peau qui me démoralise
Un p'tit peu
Et c'est pourquoi je voudrais
Je voudrais être noir
Je voudrais être noir
Hey hey hey, vous les Saints, les Élus
Hey hey hey, vous les simples d'esprit
Vous qui chantez tout de blanc vêtus
Dans les verts pâturages près de Lui
Dites-moi s'il vaut mieux pour entrer dans ce royaume
Avoir plutôt la peau noire ou plutôt la peau jaune
Et si le blanc n'est pas une couleur déconseillée
Parmi vous
Quoi qu'il en soit je voudrais
Je voudrais être noir
Je voudrais être noir
Je voudrais être noir
Je voudrais être noir
Je voudrais être noir
Noir, noir, noir, oui, tout noir
Avec une belle couleur d'ébène et des cheveux crépus
Et puis je voudrais habiter là-bas
Pour pouvoir chanter tous les soirs
À la Nouvelle Orléans
Voir le Mississipi couler, pouvoir souffler dans une trompette
Pouvoir taper sur un tambour entouré de mes amis noirs
Et faire la nouba tous les soirs et je pourrais crier:
Yeah, yeah! Yeah!
Yeah, yeah! Yeah!

Translation

Hey hey hey, Mr. Wilson Picket
Hey hey hey you Mr. James Brown
Please tell me how you do
Mr. Charles, Mr. King, Mr. Brown
I do my best to sing like you
But I can't do much, I can't do much
I think it's the color, the color of my skin
Who does not go
And that's why I would like
I would like to be black
I would like to be black
Hey hey hey tell me Monsieur Faubus
Hey hey hey tell me how the whites
Font to sell the niggers to Argus
And to burn it from time to time
And I do my best not to think about it
And very often I feel very, very embarrassed
By the color of my skin that demoralizes me
A little bit
And that's why I would like
I would like to be black
I would like to be black
Hey hey hey you Saints, The Elects
Hey hey hey you simple minds
You who sing all dressed in white
In the green pastures near Him
Tell me if it's better to enter this realm
Rather have black skin or rather yellow skin
And if white is not a bad color
Among you
Anyway I would like
I would like to be black
I would like to be black
I would like to be black
I would like to be black
I would like to be black
Black, black, black, yes, all black
With a beautiful ebony color and frizzy hair
And then I would like to live there
To be able to sing every night
In New Orleans
See the Mississippi flow, be able to blow a trumpet
Being able to bang a drum surrounded by my black friends
And do the shinging every night and I could shout:
Yeah yeah! Yeah!
Yeah yeah! Yeah!

Every day brings its share of amazing news.  Nino Ferrer only wished to be black (surely not any kind of black) in his song, but Jessica Krug has taken an extra step : 

 

Jessica Krug, a Professor at George Washington University, has written extensively about Africa, Latin America, the diaspora and identity, all while claiming her own Black and Latina heritage. But Krug has now revealed the truth: She is White.

"My grandparents, who gave me the best parts of themselves, music and movement and storytelling, the inclination to ask and the soul to listen. My ancestors, unknown, unnamed, who bled life into a future they had no reason to believe could or should exist. My brother, the fastest, the smartest, the most charming of us all. Those whose names I cannot say for their own safety, whether in my barrio, in Angola, or in Brazil," she wrote in the introduction to her 2018 book, "Fugitive Modernities: Politics and Identity Outside the State in Kisama, Angola, and the Americas, c. 1594-Present" -- which traces the histories of communities in Angola -- begins with references to those who came before her, her grandparents and her ancestors. It's now being held up as one way Krug lied about her identity.

"To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness," she wrote.

Krug acknowledged that she had no right to claim these identities, saying that "doing so is the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures." She apologized for what she calls her "continued appropriation of a Black Caribbean identity," saying she was wrong, unethical, immoral, anti-Black and colonial.