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I come from a family of Mississippi sharecroppers just a few generations away from slavery, and I experienced a lot of racism growing up - you can't avoid that if you're a person of color in this country.

I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.

The misperception about the South is that everybody is racist, and all black people are victims, that what was prevalent in the '60s is only relegated to the South.

Africans who immigrate to America know how little racism exists there. They suspect it before emigrating from Africa, and they know it after arriving in America. Indeed, America, the Left's depiction of it notwithstanding, is the least racist country in the world.

I think we typically, as Northerners, stereotype what the South is in so many negative ways. We kind of forget all the beautiful things that they contribute to make this country a country.

I can see why many Southerners, black ones in particular, don't like the implication that Southernness and the Confederate heritage are one and the same, because they're not. On the other hand, there are people who want to extirpate that completely and want folks to spit on the graves of their ancestors.

I do not have the slightest bit of racism in me. I do not judge people with regards to the colour of their skin, their origin, or their religion. I defend them all, because I defend French people. And, of course, I defend the interests of France, the interests of French people.

I'm not one to spend my life asking the question, 'Is there racism in America?' Certainly there is. But I want to do something about it.