23

This article analyses how class and race identifications influence the ways in which French and British people of sub-Saharan descent and the middle and upper classes respond to racialisation, and in particular, inferiorisation. Firstly, it looks at the minority of respondents who hold dominant positions and therefore show a stronger identification with wealthy backgrounds. More likely to come from privileged families, with prestigious degrees and/or occupying high positions in the private sector, these profiles are also more often men, socialised in privileged white environments, and who minimise their experiences of racialisation. They thus protect themselves from inferiorisation by displaying their privileged social status and class habitus. The article then examines the trajectories of people who do not express a sense of belonging to the privileged classes. These people are characterised by inconsistencies in status and different forms of minority socialisation: They come from less privileged backgrounds or are marked by downward mobility, and/or have been socialised in racially mixed neighbourhoods. More often women, they also politicise issues of race more strongly. Their responses to inferiorisation involve humour and confrontation, but also a critical view of the white privileged classes and, conversely, a valorisation of racialised working-class environments.