Assa Traoré

Assa Traoré (born 1985) is a French-Malian anti-racism activist and leader of the Truth and Justice for Adama Committee, named after her half-brother, Adama Traoré, who died in police custody, the circumstances of his death having been disputed. An autopsy raised in court indicated he may have died from positional asphyxiation during his arrest.

Since Adama's death, Assa has attempted to challenge the institutions of France, rallying activists from black neighbourhoods and engaging medical experts to try to get to the bottom of his death. and called for the prosecution of the gendarmerie regarding her brother's death. For her services to the Black Lives Matter campaign, she received the BET's Global Good Honouree Award. She grew up with 17 siblings and half-siblings. Her father, Mara-Siré Traoré, had emigrated from Mali at 17, before marrying his respective wives, and dying of lung cancer in 1999. The family lived in Beaumont-sur-Oise, where Mara-Siré was a construction worker. Traoré once said that although French society is critical of polygamy, she had a very comfortable upbringing. and was a special education teacher, until 2016, when she became an activist full time. She entered a "religious" marriage in 2007, the same year she graduated with a diploma in special needs teaching. that was relaunched in 2019 under the Maison Kaye brand.

Death of Adama Traoré

On July 19, 2016, Assa's brother, Adama, died while in the charge of the French Gendarmerie. He had been cycling on a birthday outing with his brother, Bagui. Bagui was wanted for his involvement in an extortion case, leading police to approach the brothers for a frisking. Adama, not having his identity card on him and allegedly fearful for what might happen after another recent arrest, took off on foot. Police then gave chase, capturing him and losing him two different times, eventually apprehending him by allegedly placing their bodily weight on top to subdue him. at Persan police station. One also claimed that they had been ordered to pin him down, which may be the explanation of why a later autopsy showed that he had in fact died of asphyxiation, under a 551-pound weight.

Reaction In 2017, Traoré co-wrote "Lettre à Adama" (Letter to Adama) with Elsa Vigoureux, in which she gave her narrative of her brother and his struggle.

Activism Following the death of her brother, and the exoneration of the police officers, Traoré founded the advocacy group Truth and Justice for Adama Committee (Le comité vérité et justice pour Adama). The campaign has refrained from aligning itself politically, while describing its goals as obtaining the whole truth about Adama's death, convicting the police officer(s) they hold accountable for his death, and the prohibition of certain restraints used by police which they claim can lead to asphyxiation. They also challenge what they describe as the "social elimination of blacks and Arabs". Traoré spoke at the "Marche pour Adama" (March for Adama), the gathering of 2,700 people in honour of Adama Traoré. The march was held on July 18, 2020 (Adama's birthday) in Val-d'Oise. She called on the French government to indict the officers who killed Adama, and for the elements of his autopsy to be reexamined, saying:

Famous attendees of the march included DJ Snake, Danielle Simonnet and Manuel Bompard.

Truth and Justice for Adama Committee alt=The Truth and Justice for Adama Committee demonstrating in Paris, 2020. The Truth and Justice for Adama Committee leading a demonstration in Paris, June 13, 2020. Assa Traoré is the figurehead of "Le comité vérité et justice pour Adama" (Truth and Justice for Adama committee) which includes seasoned activists such as Youcef Brakni, a Bagnolet activist, Samir Elyes from the MIB, who was employed to organise violence against gendarmes, and Almamy Kanouté from the group Émergence, who was employed as a public relations manager. When experts required by Justice put forward various reasons to explain Adama Traoré's death, the Truth and Justice for Adama Committee, at its own expense, commissioned reports from experts which contradict the official explanations put forward, thus avoiding the closure of the case and requesting new judicial investigations.

The committee succeeded in getting writers Annie Ernaux and Édouard Louis, as well as philosopher and sociologist Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, involved on a long-term basis. A few days after the attack on the Bayonne mosque, Assa Traoré and the Truth and Justice for Adama committee were among the first to call for a demonstration against Islamophobia in Paris on November 10, 2019.

Black American activist Angela Davis hails Assa Traoré's struggle, because "the struggle in which she is engaged clearly denounces police violence and systemic racism as integral elements of French society, like police violence and its genealogy with slavery in the United States of America" and believes that "it was time for women to take the lead in the struggle movements, because they have always been the backbone of it". Assa Traoré denies any proximity with Houria Bouteldja, whom she adds that she has never met: "I will be very clear: we do not have the same vision as the Indigenous Party of the Republic, and we do not want to be associated with them. The Adama Committee is open to everyone." Refusing to exclude, for example, white people from her struggle, she declared before the Paris judicial court, at the appeal of the Truth and Justice for Adama Committee on June 2, 2020: "No matter where you come from, no matter what color of skin you have, no matter what religion you have, no matter what sexual orientation you have, you must not remain a spectator in the face of injustice, in the face of murder, in the face of police impunity".

Especially after the protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 in Minnesota, the committee is closer to the American Black Lives Matter movement and to concepts forged in the United States such as institutional racism or intersectionality as a tool for analysing discrimination. Youcef Brakni, a member of the committee, said in an interview:

Sociologist Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, a member of the committee who wrote a book with Assa Traoré, relativizes the American influence. He admits that "in terms of theoretical reflection, there is such a disconnection in the French intellectual and academic field with these issues that we are obliged to refer to American theorists such as Paul Butler, Michelle Alexander or Alice Goffman", but he adds that "there is this tendency, when talking about the police or racism, to always evoke the American situation, which seems problematic to me. The Adama Committee is often compared to Black Lives Matter. But for me, it is a way of denying that it is a French story, even more hidden here than in the United States".

Books Lettre à Adama, written by Assa Traoré and Elsa Vigoureux, Seuil, 2017 (ISBN 978-2-02-136899-4) Le Combat Adama, written by Assa Traoré and Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, Stock, 2019. (ISBN 978-2-234-08739-2)