Paris, June 3, 2020

Letter addressed to my white friends who do not see where the problem is.

In France we are not racists but I do not remember having ever seen a black man minister. Yet I am fifty years old, I have seen, governments. In France we are not racist but in the prison population blacks and Arabs are over-represented. In France we are not racists but for twenty-five years that I publish books I have answered only once the questions of a black journalist. I was photographed only once by a woman of Algerian origin. In France we are not racist but the last time that they refused to serve me on the terrace, I was with an Arab. The last time I was asked for my papers, I was with an Arab. The last time the person I was waiting for almost missed the train because it was stopped by the police at the station, it was black. In France we are not racist but during confinement the mothers whom we saw getting tasered on the grounds that they did not have the little paper by which we allowed ourselves to go out were racialized women , in popular neighborhoods. The white women, meanwhile, we were seen jogging and the market in the seventh arrondissement. In France we are not racist but when we announced that the death rate in Seine Saint Denis was 60 times higher than the national average, not only we did not give a damn but we did allowed to say between us "it is because they confine themselves badly". It is in Seine-Saint-Denis that there are the fewest doctors per inhabitant of the whole territory. They took the RER every day to keep the essential work for our common life be assured. In the Center, it was "garden party "every day, in a stroller, on a bicycle, in a car, on foot ... only scooters were missing. But we had to comment:" It's because they confine themselves badly "

I can already hear the clamor of the service tweeters, offending themselves aggressively as they do each time we speak to say something that does not correspond to official propaganda: "what horror, but why so much violence?" "

As if the violence was not what happened on July 19, 2016. As if the violence was not the brothers of Assa Traore imprisoned. This Tuesday, I go for the first time in my life to a political rally of more than 80,000 people organized by a non-white collective. This crowd is not violent. This June 2, 2020, for me, Assa Traoré is Antigone. But this Antigone does not allow itself to be buried alive after having dared to say no. Antigone is no longer alone. She raised an army. The crowd chants: Justice for Adama. These young people know what they say when they say if you are black or Arab the police scares you: they tell the truth. They tell the truth and they demand justice. Assa Traore takes the microphone and says to those who came "your name has gone down in history". And the crowd does not cheer because it is charismatic or because it is photogenic. The crowd cheers because the cause is just. Justice for Adama. Similar justice for those who are not white. And the whites we shout this same slogan and we know that not being ashamed of having to shout it again, in 2020, would be an ignominy. Shame is just the minimum.

I am white. I leave my house every day without taking my papers. People like me it is the blue card that we go back to seek when we have forgotten it. The city tells me you're at home here. A white woman like me out of pandemic circulates in this city without even noticing where the police are. And I know that if there are three of them sitting on my back until I suffocate - just because I tried to dodge a routine check - we'll make a big deal of it. I was born white as others were born men. The problem is not to report "but I have never killed anyone" as they say "but I am not a rapist". Because privilege is having the choice to think about it, or not. I cannot forget that I am a woman. But I can forget that I am white. This is to be white. Think it, or not think about it, depending on the mood. In France, we are not racist but I do not know a single black or Arab person who has this choice.

Virginie Despentes

#racisme 
#France

Bron: InternFrance

Letter addressed to my white friends who do not see where the problem is