#Blacklivesmatter - Black and White
Nadalette La Fonta ??
écrivaine et conférencière - Nos tempêtes sont à la hauteur de nos rêves - TEDx speaker - chez Ecriture, Editions et Conférences
I can't breathe.” - Eric Garner, New York City, July 17, 2014
“I can't breathe.” - George Floyd, Minneapolis, May 25, 2020
I can't breathe either.
Memories come flooding back.
A bond of true friendship forged at the age of 16: meeting my soul sister, Meryanne Loum-Martin, the sister I had dreamed of, always present but never clingy, lively and sensitive, ambitious and loving, energetic and ethical. We live in different countries now, caught up in our respective lives. But if one of us has news, be it good or bad, the other is the first to know. My soul sister is Franco-Senegalese, married to an American.
My first love Mono was a wonderful man. Studying in Aix-en-Provence in the 70s like me, he was from a well established Moroccan family. And yet I found the way he was treated at the city hall when he went for his paperwork disgusting. He just laughed it off, but I did not.
My Haitian friend, Muriel, who was also a student, was as beautiful as she was susceptible, and the frequent racist jokes in the lecture halls made her uncomfortable. We would rant about it to each other.
Sometime later, I ruined a very posh dinner at the elegant home of very “chic” hosts. They were unabashedly anti-Semitic. I stood up, exclaimed “I’m an honorary Jew - and so was Jesus, by the way!” and then saw myself out.
On a sunny spring day in Marseille a year later, by which time I was 23 years old, I was strolling with another girlfriend, Marie G. Ahead of us walked her three-year-old son, an adorable bundle of joy. Two ladies exclaimed: "And to think that this sweet little nigger, will grow up to be an awful big black man". His mother and I were stunned, both frozen in a state of shock and horror.
This was the norm in 80s France.
But then blades became dull, shocking slurs were heard less and less, and our lives evolved together. At least that’s what I thought.
I no longer noticed these issues. Living in a caring, educated and cosmopolitan environment, I could not.
Why am I telling you this story? In whose name would I, a white French-born woman, share these words?
Because today, my own kin are the ones unable to breathe.
In the 2000s I spent a while in the United States working for IBM, where equal opportunity and non-discrimination were not empty promises. There was a structured and quantifiable diversity policy (J.Watson’s letter 1953), particularly with regards to women, but also when it came to race, cultural background, sexual orientation, etc.
Despite this, my black executive friends in New York would still discuss at length the comparative limitations of being a woman and being black, and the hierarchy of minority identities in the land of the American dream. I would listen, without fully grasping the subtleties of this debate.
Where then, you may ask, does my legitimacy in raising my voice on the matter stem from?
From way back when. All the way from a distant past.
My family history, like so many, is ambiguous.
It goes back to Jean Baptiste La Fonta, a royal council in 1746. I believe he had nine children: Philibert, who went to the United States and settled in Louisiana, Jean Hilaire, who went to Martinique, or perhaps Cuba, and died there in 1854, and Jean and Jean-Baptiste, who emigrated to Santo Domingo.
These two brothers, born in the southwest of France, left to cultivate land in Santo Domingo. It was there that they raised their families and that they were laid to rest. Their children and descendants passed down the La Fonta name, which became Lafonta.
Eventually my ancestors left Santo Domingo. Through complicated routes, they landed in New Orleans, where they settled permanently, taking on any available jobs, no matter how difficult, in order to become American citizens. And thus began the story of the New Orleans LaFontas.
By then it was the 30s - hardly a good time to be a black, recent immigrant called Lafonta in a country where slavery had only been abolished in 1865. In Louisiana, plantations bore witness to this painful history.
Back in France, my family was not particularly curious about our American relatives.
In the midst of wartime and decolonization, their minds were elsewhere.
Not to mention that transatlantic journeys of this sort were known to expose one’s involvement in the triangular trade, and so the truth may have been too difficult for my family to bear and uncover.
But my father wanted answers. Born in the early 20th century, he liked jazz, but would rather his daughter marry a white man. He wrote a letter to the New Orleans consul, on his manual typewriter, to find out how to contact these mysterious Lafontas. He never got a reply, much to his irritation. Years later I would learn that his letter had been received, but that the American Lafontas were not keen on reconnecting with their white relatives at the time.
Meanwhile my childhood dreams were filled with images of Cuba and Santo Domingo.
Then in the 2000s, the world opened up, thanks to the Internet. No more family secrets! Or almost.
In 2013, I welcomed my cousin Juan LaFonta and his sister Dana into my Paris home.
From the moment I opened the door and laid eyes on these people whom I knew nothing about, I knew my family was complete at last.
Despite being complete strangers and having so many differences, it only took a moment for us to feel an innate intimacy. We didn’t feel like we needed to say a word, and yet we also felt the desire to spend hours together sharing every detail of our lives, and exchanging a thousand stories. We were overcome by joy.
So there you have it. My answer: my family is black and white.
Juan LaFonta, his family, and his father George LaFonta, are my blood.
Juan is younger than me. A trial lawyer in New Orleans, he was elected to the State House of Representatives in 2005, among many other achievements. Like me, he likes people, parties, meeting people, helping others, and sharing.
Juan could be George Floyd, and he is my kin. George Floyd is one of his, and thus, one of mine. So it is.
If he can’t breathe, neither can I.
When I was sick, Juan immediately came to see me in Paris from the States.
In 2015, when a surgical error left me paraplegic, Juan came all the way to Paris, just to celebrate my birthday.
When I was first able to stand up in the spring of 2017, I flew to New Orleans with my husband and one of my daughters.
We discovered the city with Juan, meeting his mother Joanna and his father George.
And in George's arms, I felt a love that transcends all: uniting us across centuries, continents, and race.
George had a letter for me - the one my father had written to the New Orleans consul 20 years earlier. He didn't want to reply, and gave it to his son, who then tracked me down in 2013.
Walking with Juan in Nola was an amazing experience. Before even leaving the airport we could see his face on huge billboards: next to his photo, his telephone number, in the event of any racial or community problem. In the US, being a lawyer is a very “American” and engaged profession.
Whether on the tramway or in the street, Juan is recognized by members of his community, notably from videos gone viral in the country - even making his way to the Ellen de Generes show. He is celebrated, sought out, congratulated, admired. And he loves people so much. He chats with them and exchanges stories, always with such warmth.
So when I see attacks against black people, whether American, French, or other, all over the news, it hurts as if I myself am being attacked.
Just as my friends from childhood and adolescence were.
Just like them. Meryanne, Muriel, Marie G, and Mono, who sadly has since passed.
Juan's grief is my grief, as is his rage.
George Floyd’s stolen life fills my eyes with tears. That could’ve been my George Lafonta, or Juan or Dana.
A week ago Juan called me, broken-hearted. He wanted my opinion on video messages BlackVoicesNewOrleans he was preparing for his community and for American in general, regardless of race, gender, or creed.
We’ll say loud and clear: we are here to stop this from happening again and to build a fairer world together.
We are a family.
We are one
This article is illustrated by the beautiful work of my friend Laetitia de Gaulle
Thank you Tha?s Martin for your great and gracious editing.
Nadalette La Fonta :Site https://www.nadalettelafonta.com/
https://www.nadalettelafonta.com/nadalette-la-fonta-writer-and-tedx-speaker/.
TEDx: Rien ne nous arrive par hasard (English subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S8mie3bwtw
https://www.facebook.com/nadalette
https://www.instagram.com/nadalettelf/
https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/nadalettelafontasix/?locale=en_US
https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/nadalettelafontasix/
https://twitter.com/nadaletteLFS
Juan LaFonta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_LaFonta
Black voices New Orleans https://youtu.be/d4r4kLTlG9Y
Juan LaFonta ft. Big Freedia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Wgz7auLAk
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmQa2Eebb70psmqIgPcH0DA
MeryAnne Loum- Martin :
https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/boutique-hotel-jnane-tamsna-marrakech-morocco-black-woman-owned/
https://www.societegenerale.com/en/strengh-of-africa/instants-africains/meryanne-loum-martin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoB7HV2s9WY&t=46s
Meryanne Loum Martin, Jnane Tasma. Tribute to Leila Alaoui, photographe et vidéaste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnCLDmm3vgI
https://www.instagram.com/jnanetamsna/
Laetitia de Gaulle:
Un récit magnifique à lire absolument. Merci Nadalette et à très vite
psychologue
4 年Chère, chère Nadalette, très touchée par ton récit. Nous sommes tous des êtres humains. Point. Ca ne se discute pas, couleur, ethnie, classe, genre et transgenre. Et tu imagines, toi qui connais mon histoire, comment ce "I can't breath" résonne et hurle en moi. A quel point je peux ressentir sa douleur et la partager. Je suis George Floyd.