Conference | Rethinking the issue of race

How can one think about the question of race when one is white? This is the question posed by Mr. Marchais's book. Indeed, the question of race concerns not only racists or their victims, but society as a whole. Yet, the question remains largely unexamined by white people. This essay shows how, due to the legacy of European racial systems, white people still live in a "White House": an intellectual, psychological, and emotional disposition that distorts their perspective and their way of being in the world. Drawing on personal experiences, the author traces the contours and forms of this situation, without succumbing to the guilt or anxiety that this question often evokes. The goal of the awareness he proposes is not to "help" those who have been or are the targets of European racial systems, but to free ourselves from this fundamental cognitive and emotional bias, in order to bring…