For Lilian Thuram, a former French professional soccer player and 1998 World Cup champion, history is both the source of racism and a weapon against it.
After playing professional soccer for 17 years, Thuram, 50, became an accomplished author and social justice activist, establishing the Lilian Thuram Foundation in 2008 to dismantle systemic racism and educate people against discrimination in France. and all over the world.
On Monday, Thuram visited the Fenway Center on Northeastern’s Boston campus to speak about racism and the points he makes in his book, “White Thought⏤ Behind the Mask of Racial Identity.,” with the university community, as well as students from the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury and Milton public schools.
The conversation was moderated by Régine Jean-Charles, director of African studies, dean’s professor of culture and social justice, and professor of women’s studies, gender, and sexuality in Northeastern’s College of Social Sciences and Humanities.
“I became a black person at the age of 9,” says Thuram.
That’s how old he was when his family moved to France from Guadeloupe in the West Indies.
Shortly after his arrival, some children insulted him by calling him a “dirty black”. Thuram did not understand what was happening and turned to his mother for an explanation.
“That’s the way it is. People are racist. This is not going to change,” he told her.
At that age, Thuram says, racism touches something deep inside a person and leaves a wound. It affects self-confidence and self-confidence. That’s why he had to read books to understand what racism was, build trust, and find other black people who would prove to him the opposite of what he was led to believe about himself and black people.
Thuram says that people’s opinions are based on stories from the past that are told from a specific point of view.
“Why do I see what I see? Why do I think what I think?” he says. “We have to challenge those views to understand things in a more complex way.”
Kids don’t categorize other kids, she says, but when racism is embedded in people’s lives, it comes from history.
“The history behind racism is very old and each one of us has prejudices related to the past,” says Thuram.
He believes that to get beyond those prejudices, people need to study history. After reading books on psychology, sociology and economics, Thuram came to the conclusion that racism is an ideology to justify economic violence.
“It is the economic systems that need to legitimize violence so that some people can be exploited,” he says, adding that the same concept applies to sexism.
Very often, people tend to accept and reproduce that way of thinking, even if it happens on a subconscious level.
Thuram writes about black history before slavery because most people only learn about black history after slavery.
“I write for the little child in me,” he says. “It would have helped me significantly with my self-esteem.”
Instead of talking about people experiencing racism, Thuram believes the category of whiteness needs to be explored.
“What is white? How do you experience being white? he says.
But people often feel uncomfortable looking at racism from that angle. When Thuram proposed the theme to a museum in France that approached him about curating an exhibition, the museum refused to include the top part and the exhibition did not take place, he says.
History made whites and men believe that they are the norm, Thuram says.
“When you belong to the norm, you don’t question yourself,” he says. “It’s interesting to see how all the categories are politicized.”
Through his work, Thuram says, he examines the hierarchy of society.
“We need to question categories that we don’t question,” he says.
“White thinking is not thinking about white people because each of us internally thinks that being white is better,” says Thuram. “We have to deconstruct this, think about it, then go back and denounce it.”
There are very few black coaches in soccer and other sports, he says, because blacks are seen only as having strong bodies.
“Whites are smarter. We accept this bias, even black people,” she says. “Because you have to be strong in one or the other.”
Thuram experienced this biased thinking firsthand when a teammate sitting on the bench during a game told him: “With your physique and my intelligence we would be the best.”
Another incident of racism that he experienced occurred when he was playing for an Italian club. Many fans used to imitate the sounds of howling monkeys as soon as a black player touched the ball, Thuram says.
He understood that white people made noise to feel better about themselves, and that helped him deal with the situation, he says.
“We believe that it is the institutions that give more freedom,” he says. “Obviously not true. It is the individuals who no longer accept the situation and denounce it and make things change”.
Similarly, the poor are led to believe that it is not normal to share wealth, says Thuram. That includes the World Cup.
“We are emotional beings,” he says. “Sports arouse those emotions. When you’re being drawn to those emotions, we can sell you anything.”
That’s why he watches and analyzes football.
“They have told you that the strongest win, but in reality the richest clubs win,” he says. “There is a big difference between the richest clubs and others.”
The same is true in society, says Thuram.
When French police killed two teenagers in 2005, he was one of the leading voices speaking out publicly about what happened.
“Intervening is a political gesture. Not intervening is also a political gesture, ”she says. “Often many people who let things happen don’t understand the violence that is being perpetrated.”
Sometimes these incidents don’t concern them directly or the people who should be involved don’t act out of fear, says Thuram.
But change is not caused by individual people like Rosa Parks, Frantz Fanon or Nelson Mandela, he says. It takes millions and millions of people to change the system.
He believes that young people should focus on politics and strive to build a system that works for all people regardless of color and that redistributes wealth.
“Don’t be afraid to speak up,” says Thuram.
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