In our work together, going back to the mid-2000s, we have always felt that it was impossible to engage fully with the ever circulating, scavenger nature of race and racism from the narrow Anglo-American vantage point that often predominates and orients public and scholarly discussions. Especially, when attempting to think with and against race in Europe and to excavate the attempts to ‘bury it alive’ we always attempted to seek out the parallels and overlaps between contexts that attempted to portray themselves as distinct, mirroring indeed the sedimentation created by a politics of race. Reading race in France, and in particular over the last two decades Islamophobia, has been central to that work in common. In this conversation, we reflect on debates on race, coloniality and the spectre of ‘Islamo-leftism’ in the France of 2020–2021, against the backdrop of both a global pandemic and a worldwide movement against racial violence. Through this dialogue, we think about what has changed, and what remains the same, ending with a recognition of the international importance of decolonial and political antiracist politics in France and the energy they inspire in the face of the most reactionary of forces.

在我们的合作中，追溯到 2000 年代中期，我们一直觉得不可能从狭隘的英美制高点充分了解种族和种族主义的不断循环、清道夫的本质，而这种优势常常主导和引导公众和学术讨论。尤其是，当试图在欧洲思考种族和反对种族并挖掘“将其活埋”的尝试时，我们总是试图寻找试图将自己描绘成不同的背景之间的相似之处和重叠，这确实反映了由种族政治。法国的阅读竞赛，尤其是过去二十年的仇视伊斯兰教，一直是这项工作的核心。在这次谈话中，我们反思了 2020-2021 年法国关于种族、殖民和“伊斯兰左翼”幽灵的辩论，在全球流行病和全球反对种族暴力运动的背景下。通过这次对话，我们思考了哪些改变了，哪些保持不变，最终承认法国去殖民化和政治反种族主义政治的国际重要性以及它们在面对最反动的力量时激发的能量。