Deconstructing “white thinking” on its own turf

There was a time when Lilian Thuram was one of the top defenders in the world, celebrating a European Championship and a World Cup with the French national football squad. Today, he is a tireless activist and a leading anti-racism campaigner. With thought-provoking books, eye-opening exhibitions and honorary degrees from European universities on his resumé, Thuram has developed into a prominent public intellectual, leveraging his past as a sports icon to eliminate the usual distance between ideas and society. In his most recent book White Thinking: Behind the mask of racial identity, he maps the invisible, complex and dark workings of white thinking and how it became dominant, imposing its own habits, beliefs, biases and hierarchies. What does it mean for a black person to grow up in regimes organized by white thinking? How was this apparatus of prejudice constructed and established? Lilian Thuram will be joined by veteran football player Demis Nikolaidis, European champion with the Greek national team, Lauretta Macauley, founder of the United African Women Organization Greece (UAWO), and Panagiotis Menegos, journalist and radio producer, for a lively discussion about racist stereotypes on and off the field, unbearable inequities and pernicious social norms, but also about the potential for liberation from oppressive frames of thought in Greece, France and beyond.