“‘Dirty black’ is actually hello in a black career, really“.
Kareen Guiock is a journalist and musical artist. Since a young age, she has been the victim of ordinary racism and today, she denounces it. To find her, go to M6, but also on all streaming platforms with her jazz album “NINA”.
“Being black”
Kareen Guiock compares racism to a gas leak in the atmosphere: “Sometimes you smell the gas, sometimes you don’t. Some feel more than others, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a gas leak.“. Racism is a problem she faced at a very young age. When she was five or six years old, she lived on the same floor as one of her friends. One day, she decides to go to her house and knock on the door, when her mother opens it, she shouts at her: “Oh no, that doesn’t fit in my house!” and then slams the door.
This is how Kareen’s own mother explained to her what it was like to “be black”: “It’s really at that moment, I think my mother is trying to put words into words without really knowing how to explain it to me.“. Following this story, Kareen went to her best Polish friend to tell her. And she asked her if that meant that she was black too. The journalist remembers telling her that maybe . Finally, looking back today, she realizes thatshe didn’t know what it really meant to be black at point “give someone a problem“, and even now sometimes.
A daily life that has become banal
“I’m black, is it worth it for me to travel?“. This is the question Kareen Guiock asked on the phone, when she was looking for apartments and she didn’t want to waste her time. Surprise, most people were shocked by this request and replied: “Oh, but of course!“Only once did he get a negative response from a lady who replied: “Well, listen, I don’t care more than that“. This type of behavior that she herself must adopt and that she experiences from others on a daily basis, it’s like a banality : “It’s not something that traumatizes us, usually that’s the aperitif. Be careful, that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.“What the journalist is trying to demonstrate is that racism, when it is verbal, she considers it banal.
Sometimes, she says she goes through lots of phases, including denial. “IThere is no pleasure in being a victim of anything else” she says. She sometimes claims her right to be angry at all this racism, because it is something that she describes as abnormal. It should not be accepted and above all, Kareen Guiock insists , that it should no longer exist. On a daily basis, racism manifests itself in several ways and it refers to the field of work. In addition to today, not being paid as much as others, this vocation of journalist, this was absolutely not something she was considering: “I didn’t think it was possible, being black“. Thus, she makes a point of honor to the representation. Image matters and the journalist explains that when she was a child, there was certainly no black woman presenting the news. His conclusion is such that it is terrible that Racism still remains so banal that we don’t even get offended by it anymore.