I’m not black, I’m a man
Martin Luther King
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Today, Lilian Thuram (52) does not speak like a former footballer.
Speak like a man.
And for that reason, he refers to his childhood when I ask him when it all started, when he woke up to the world and assumed that racism flies over us, whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, when he decided to stand up to the harasser, the discriminator.
–My fight does not come from football. “My struggle comes from childhood,” he answers.
And then I relax, I rub my hands to listen to his speech, a well-woven story, worked on over the years, a reflection that brings out our colors and disarms us, because we all have prejudices and the debate is not as light as it is stated. Broncano: “What are you, more racist or more sexist?”
We are all a lot of everything, we all have contradictions attached to our skin.
And we don’t know.
(We spoke in a small room at Barça’s Auditori 1899; these days, Barcelona has welcomed the Fit for life initiative against racism and discriminationa forum organized by UNESCO).
I ask Thuram:
–What is the most intelligent response that a black footballer should give when he is being insulted from the stands?
–This question is interesting… Why should the black footballer be the one to give an intelligent answer?
(His response hits me right on the edge: it illuminates my own prejudices.)
“Vinícius suffers from racism and we end up saying that he is responsible because he is not behaving well.”
–Because there has to be a reaction to the stupid public. And he, with his intelligence, shows it to her – stammer.
Lilian Thuram stares at me, fixes her gaze.
He insists:
–Why does the violated player have to give the answer…?
–Well… Eeeeeh. So, if it is not the player who should respond, perhaps the referee, the institutions should do so…
–The question is interesting. You, like most people, believe that it is up to the victim to make an intelligent response. In the case of a woman being raped or assaulted, what intelligent response should she give?
–Well, I ask you because there are black players who leave the field when they are insulted. And the consequence is that the public charges more against the most reactionary.
–It is interesting that you put this question in this sense – Thuram insists, who is no longer going to let go of his prey (the prey is me; or many of us) –: perhaps it would have been better to ask what the world of sport should give for an answer, but you have asked what the player should give for an intelligent answer. In any case, the most powerful response would be for the white player to leave the field. Why don’t you do it? That is the real question.
When I was 9 years old I asked my mother: ‘Why do other kids call me ‘dirty black’?’ There I began to reflect.”
Then he goes back to his childhood.
Lilian Thuram, soccer star between the 90s and 2008, when he retired with Barça, world champion with France (1998), was happy as a child, in Guadeloupe, but he was not so happy later, when the family landed in Paris.
–Did something happen at some point in your life that activated you in the fight against racism?
–It was not something related to football, but to my life in general, something that led me to ask myself things.
–What things?
–When we arrived in Paris, other children insulted me. They told me: ‘dirty black’. I was nine years old. And there the question was activated. When I left school I said to my mother: ‘Why do they call me a dirty black man?’ She responded: ‘This is racism and this is not going to change.’ There I began to reflect on this problem.
(Years later, in 2008, he would create the Lilian Thuram Foundation against racism).
–And how were you trained in the fight against racism?
–From the moment I became interested in the subject, I began to educate myself. That’s how it’s done, right? I think there are a lot of people who talk about racism but don’t know the history.
–Is there more racism now than before?
–There are more complaints. And it is accepted to talk more about racism today. People who suffer from it have the opportunity to say so now. It is similar to what happens in sexism. There always has been. And women have always denounced it. The difference is that now women have a space to be heard.
“You, like most people, believe that it is the victim who must give an intelligent response.”
–Aauri Bokessa (a former black athlete born in Spain, daughter of Guineans) says that, if she met a black university professor or a coach, she would distrust them more than a white coach or university professor. Does the same thing happen to you?
–From the moment we build a world based on the hierarchy of skin color, this problem reaches everyone. This is world education. As in sexism, in a society that grows up believing that men are superior, we end up thinking that the world must be like this: that is why there are men who feel superior to women and white people who believe themselves superior to non-white people. . And there are people who want to stay in this hierarchy. They feel pleasure in this situation and that is why they do not want things to change.
–Why do so many football fans behave like this?
–The stadium is bigger: they have a feeling of anonymity. And that way it’s easier to say certain things.
–How do you see the Vinícius case?
–Vinícius’s analysis requires much more time because it explains the history of racism. Vinícius suffers from racism and we end up saying that it is his responsibility because he does not behave well. And it’s always like that. In general, in the racist world, the black people we love are those who do not speak out or make demands. When the black person denounces racism and says it openly, with force, we want to silence them. Saying that Vinícius is responsible for what happens to him is extraordinarily racist.
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