Lilian Thuram: "No matter your skin color, you have a white bias"

INTERVIEW

"If we want to go beyond the problem of racism, we must know the history of racism", insists Lilian Thuram.

In 

he publishes in Broché, the former footballer calls for questioning the mechanisms of discrimination internalized by all.

At the microphone of Frédéric Taddeï, Saturday on Europe 1, he underlines both the difficulty and the need for an awareness of these "biases". 

>> Find all of Frédéric Taddeï's shows in podcast and replay here 

"Children in my CE2 class call me dirty black"

These questions have always been part of the life of Lilian Thuram, born in Guadeloupe.

"I arrive in the Paris region and children in my CE2 class call me dirty black. And there I do not understand, I am subjected to violence," he says.

"I'm trying to understand by talking to my mum, and she says something very serious for a nine year old child: 'That's the way darling, people are racist, it's not going to change.'"

Years later, the ex-footballer "turned this situation around".

“I looked at the kids who insulted me. And I was like, 'How have 9 year olds internalized that being black is inferior? How 9 year olds internalized that. they were white and to be white was to be superior? '" 

Heard on europe1:

We built the idea that there would be a race superior to others

If this is the case, according to Lilian Thuram, it is because “this white thought has educated the world for centuries.” It is political thought that ranks people according to the color of their skin.

(...) We built the idea that there would be a race superior to others, but it is a construction, to divide people.

So, to talk about history is to understand today's reality, ”he unrolls. 

School books ranking the races until 1950

"This means that whatever your skin color, you have a white bias," adds the 1998 World Champion, taking as proof that "everywhere in the world, whether in Africa, Asia or India , women whiten their skin because beauty is linked to the whiteness of the skin.

And to quote again from his personal experience: "Until 1950, in France, we taught school children that the white race was the most perfect. The books [which conveyed this idea] were published until 1977. And I was born in 1972 ... "

How, then, to fight against ideas thus internalized?

"We must question ourselves," replied Lilian Thuram, citing the example of communitarianism.

"If you are against communitarianism, you have to ask yourself the question: 'why are you saying so?'

(...) When I was a soccer player in Italy, one day, there was a coach who came to see us at the table and said: 'You blacks, why are you always together?' Said to him: 'Hey, it's weird. At this other table, there are only white people. Why don't you go tell them that they're still together?'

And there he looked at me, he left. "