Book Talk: "White Thinking: Behind the Mask of Racial Identity"
Lilian Thuram, French author and former professional footballer
What does it mean to be white? Beyond just a skin colour, is it also a way of thinking? If so, how did it come about, and why?
In White Thinking: Behind the Mask of Racial Identity, drawing on history, personal experience and activist literature, the former footballer and World Champion Lilian Thuram looks at the origins and workings of white thinking, how it divides us and how it has become ubiquitous and accepted without challenge. He demonstrates how centuries of white bias and denial justified slavery and colonialism, and have reinforced norms and structures of oppression, limiting the roles and horizons of both non-whites and whites alike. Crucially, while White Thinking is a critique of ingrained structural inequities, it calls for an inclusive approach to solving the problem, and aims to raise awareness and imagine a new world in which all of humanity is given equal weight.
Lilian Thuram, born in Guadeloupe in 1972, had a prestigious international career in football for the French national team – World champion in 1998, European champion in 2000, World Cup finalist in 2006 – and played for elite European clubs such as Juventus and Barcelona. In 2008, he created the Lilian Thuram Foundation to educate against racism, and he has become a high-profile activist himself. He is the author of various non-fiction books.
Co-sponsors: CMES, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, and Department of Sociology, Harvard University
LOCATION:Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20221130T213000Z DTEND:20221130T230000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR