Audrey Pulvar has drawn the wrath of the right, the far right and part of the left by taking a stand in favor of single-sex, especially racial. A controversy that does not need to be.
Saturday March 27, 2021, Audrey Pulvar drew the wrath of a large part of the political class after her intervention on BFMTV, ensuring that in single-sex meetings, it should be possible to ask white people wishing to assist “to shut up.” Return on the context of this intervention: on Tuesday March 16, 2021, the president of the student union UNEF affirmed, on Europe 1, the existence of single-sex racialized meetings within the association: “We organize meetings to allow women to express the discrimination they may suffer, and we organize meetings to allow people affected by racism to be able to express what they are subjected to.”, she explained. There followed attacks of great violence against UNEF and more broadly, the defenders of this political tool.
Since the beginning of this political and media sequence, other people have stood up in favor of single sex, in particular Laure Adler, in a sequence very shared on social networks and mostly applauded. But if her remarks received a positive reception, it is because Laure Adler does not defend the same form of single-sex as Audrey Pulvar: the first evokes dates without a man, where the second speaks of single-sex. racial. Self-organized spaces by people of color, where whites are not welcome, or are in any case asked to observe in silence.
To see also: “Racialism”, “communitarianism” … But why be afraid of intersectionality?
“Be silent” to better deconstruct racist stereotypes
Allowing white people to possibly participate in single-sex meetings, while remaining silent and simply observing, is above all giving the floor to those affected by racism. If Audrey Pulvar defends this idea, it is to avoid that during these meetings, we speak in place of the concerned.es Moreover, as white people, to attend these debates without intervening, it is to take time to deconstruct their own stereotypes and question their more or less active participation in a system based on racist oppression by listening to the experiences of people discriminated against and without ever questioning their experiences. A good way to become an ally of the anti-racist cause.
Anti-white racism does not exist
On Twitter, the reactions were strong on the remarks of Audrey Pulvar. Right-wing and far-right policies, in particular, denouncing a “separatist” ideology. Worse still, some consider Audrey Pulvar’s words to be racist and discriminatory. However, it is important to remember that anti-white racism does not exist. Indeed, racism is by definition a system and today there is no system that prevents the Blan.che.s, because Blan.che.s, from accessing employment, housing, a place in the grandstand …
Rokhaya Diallo, journalist, activist and director, also defends this line. In 2019, in an interview with France 24, she said: “When we talk about racism, we are talking about a story, an ideology that has been conceptualized”, she explained, referring to slavery and the genocides that have marked history, “However, white people have never been the subject of theories which underestimated them.”
Discover our Newsletters!
We have so much to tell you: news, trends and all kinds of exclusions.
I subscribe
France and racial non-mixing, a historical problem
When it comes to racial non-mixing, there is a whole historical dimension that must be put back at the heart of the discussions. Single-sex meetings do not go in the direction of apartheid or segregation, as some people claim by ignoring the history of France. As a reminder, in 1865, the Black Code was drafted by Colbert at the request of Louis XIV, in order to regulate slavery and regulate the lives of slaves blacks in the French colonies. This set of text then prohibited “to slaves belonging to different masters to assemble day or night under the pretext of weddings or otherwise, either at one of their masters or elsewhere, and even less in highways or remote places”.
The current controversy proves that France still finds it difficult to consider racial non-mixing other than as a danger, which echoes the period of slavery and colonialism. It is time to see racial non-mixing for what it is: a solution of self-organization and the struggle for human rights, in a context where the voice on systemic racism is still given to people not concerned. by the subject, when it is not quite simply denied.
Melanie Bonvard
Mélanie deciphers pop culture from a societal angle and questions the female gaze in films or even series, because everything is a question of gaze, she …