Recently, the movie The Class was shown at the New York Film Festival, to the displeasure of many French. The actors were young Parisians. According to one movie critic, with their cell phones and pouts, these bored restless junior high school students look pretty much the fidgety progeny of Anytown, U.S.A. One difference being that these African, Arab, and Asian Parisians live in a country that insists its citizens have only one cultural identity, even if its identity-as France's smoldering suburbs vividly suggest- many of these same young people don't feel welcome to share.
Many French believe that Americans are obsessed with issues of race and ethnicity, particularly with tracking statistics where people are "artificially" put into "airtight" categories (whites, blacks, Hispanics, and such). France does not even include this type of information in its census, believing that this is against a common French identity as a republican ideal. Do you think it is meaningful to classify people into types? Why do you think the United States, contrary to the French, insists on classifying people? Are there any advantages and/ or disadvantages in doing this? Explain.