Translator: Nicoletta Pedrana Reviewer: Michele Gianella
Let me introduce myself, my name is Marta Sachy. S.A.C.H.Y.
I am a woman, an anthropologist, an international cooperation expert,
a mother, a daughter and much more.
But most of all, I am black.
To those claiming that black Italians do not exist,
you can say you have attended a TEDxTalk with a hologram,
in the age of the metaverse.
Being here for me today
(Applause)
is an honour but above all a duty
to reflect together on notions
such as cultural pluralism, white privilege and anti-racism.
Like many of you, I was also born on this amazing lake,
albeit in a different way.
I mean, we all have different stories to tell
but mine has obviously been marked by my blackness.
In the early 80’s,
I was one of the first girls to be born to a mixed couple.
My father is white, from Como, with French origins,
which explains my fancy surname,
while my Mozambican mother is black but with Portuguese and Indian ancestors.
I was the first black girl to be baptised in my parish.
The first black girl on my volleyball team.
The first to attend a humanistic secondary school in Lecco.
The first to study Sociology at the Bicocca University.
I have always had to live with the solitude of my black body.
My brother and I were the only students of colour
in a village of 3,300 on the lake.
When I was a child,
I didn’t realise I was different.
It all started when I grew up, being increasingly asked questions like:
“Wow! How come you speak Italian so well?”
and “Do you feel more Italian or more African?”
I felt like replying: “You know, it depends on the season”.
(Laughter)
And again: "Can I say you are my black friend, or is it offensive?"
“Well, it depends on how you say it”.
I will always remember when the mom of a friend of mine once said to me:
"I was very worried at the thought of my daughter hanging out with you.
But I then understood, you’re just like us".
I still wonder if it was a compliment or not.
I was only 14 when I realised
that the colour of my skin would mark me forever.
One day, I was waiting for a friend to go to volleyball practice,
when a man approached me
and offered me some money by the side of the road.
hood pulled up, wearing a tracksuit,
Besides episodes like these, can you imagine what it feels like
living in an environment
where a black body is considered dirty, dangerous and sexualised?
And there are no images it can relate to:
nothing in fairy tale books, in primary school textbooks,
at the bar counter, in the bank, on the TV.
Such lack of representativeness
is very disorienting
when you are trying to build and accept your identity.
Especially when all around you
identity has become synonymous with standardisation
to a monochrome, monolinguistic, monocultural model.
A model that subtracts, while mine is an identity multiplied by the cube.
Carrying my black skin around Italy was beyond exhausting.
Toni Morrison says
the very serious function of racism
is distracting you, keeping you from doing your work.
It forces you to justify, over and over again,
your right to occupy any position,
all the more so if it is a position of power.
And mind you, I’m among the most privileged ones:
born with an Italian citizenship,
I never had to miss a school trip abroad,
no lines outside the police station to renew my residence permit.
And let’s admit it:
when the police stop you, and see you’re Italian,
they let you go.
In Italy, my identity multiplied by the cube
was just incompatible with the environment I was in.
I had to make a choice: either cancel myself, or leave.
I had the chance to leave, and so I did.
I landed on England.
There, I felt invisible yet not ignored.
The colour of my skin was accepted even when I said I was Italian.
I ended up studying Social Anthropology and International Cooperation.
With hindsight, it was a sort of academic psychoanalysis
to figure out who I was
and why I was the target of such opinions.
I also studied that Africa is a continent to be proud of,
for its history and its many cultures, especially the precolonial ones.
I learned that there are no slaves but only people who have been enslaved,
and that history is written by victors, obviously.
If history were to be written by losers,
we would all be embarrassed about what happened
and what’s happening in the world today.
I also studied
that centuries-old relationships of power and race
still undermine access
to the social and economic opportunities everyone should be entitled to.
I have also learned from books
that racism is not restricted to personal events,
but is a structural social practice
aimed at maintaining the status quo of global injustices
for the benefit of the dominant classes.
Personally, I made peace with my own identity.
I realised,
when discriminatory obligations determine your very own existence,
well, it does make sense to address them
and turn them into tools
to fight against that part of society that is hostile towards you,
in order to make society, as a whole, a better place.
I have been engaging since 2007 in international cooperation.
At a young age, I came to realise
that the only difference between my Mozambican cousins and me
was sheer chance.
I was born in the great 80s in the North of Italy
while they were born in Mozambique during the civil war.
Both in Brazil and Mozambique I witnessed first-hand
the empty rhetoric void behind "where there's a will, there's a way".
The place where you were born and raised
undoubtedly has an impact on what you can achieve and become.
I started working in Salvador de Bahia,
the blackest city outside Africa.
I could see every day what it means to be different.
Walking down the same street, in the same city,
you often have on the right the wealthiest neighbourhood
and the poorest on the left.
I learned how dynamics of segregation and marginalisation
relentlessly hinder genuine social mobility,
and for the first time I heard the words "institutional racism".
Craving to “go back to the roots”,
I headed to Mozambique
where I wanted to work in a rural district,
hours away from the closest city,
to get a feel for how people lived in such an environment,
especially in a developing country.
That made me realise how outstanding these people are
who work much harder than my fellow citizens in Brianza,
yet fail by large to meet even the poverty line.
I also discovered
how childish narratives about Africa
continue to delay its development.
I’m an optimistic, idealistic, very pragmatic professional
but I do get very frustrated occasionally.
Maybe because of my personal story
I decided to devote my life
to evening out global inequalities.
I’m aware of the fact that I enjoy a privileged position,
so I’ve been doing all this by always putting myself in other people’s shoes,
even when these are uncomfortable and not the right fit.
I recommend you all start doing so, too.
Then, love,
love for a Lecco-born man
brought me back to Italy.
I began working in Rome where, despite my wearing a suit,
people struggled to grasp
why I was sitting in major meetings at the conference table.
I often heard them say: "Hey, it’s cool to have a black woman on the team!"
as if I was, I don't know,
a touch of colour, a token, or had been given a handout.
However, for four years now I have been heading a foundation
aimed at focusing on the many positive aspects of Africa
that go rather unnoticed,
including its young people, flair for innovation, will of redemption.
We support and collaborate with young African entrepreneurs
who have set up social initiatives in their communities.
We do so by listening,
meeting their specific demands,
giving them technical support when needed
and, mostly, by trying to change the narrative around Africa.
This is indeed one of our main goals:
to decolonise stereotypes about African people.
A concrete example of what our work entails?
Last year, we took five of these amazing African entrepreneurs
to the Milan Stock Exchange.
This is a "restricted" area,
traditionally a very white place.
to introduce their business
When I was asked to take part in this TEDx
and talk about my being differently Italian,
I was really uncomfortable with it.
Indeed, talking about uncertainty, racism often times causes people to say:
"Marta, come on, stop it!
You’re overreacting, look at you! There’s no such thing as racism!".
I am here because I firmly believe that discrimination is unjust
and that it must not, even remotely, be perpetuated.
Plus, I now have a three-year-old white son.
I change the line, every time I sing him a famous Italian lullaby,
"I’ll give him to the black man, who will keep him one full year"
(Laughter)
because we all know that the ‘black man’ is no fantasy character.
I don’t want him to internalise racism
even before he works out multiplication tables.
At kindergarten, I was mistaken for his nanny,
which has an upside: that keeps me away from classroom WhatsApp groups!
At the park -
(Applause).
some children ask me where his mummy is.
And again, I can’t get hold of any books that tell the story of our family.
The fact that he may grow up
feeling embarrassed about his African origins
and about the most important people in his life
makes me even more determined to contribute to tearing down
those mental cages that foment racism.
I chose not be a slave to a single story,
but to be the sum of many.
My husband makes fun of me
saying, based on how I feel when I wake up in the morning,
I can be from Lecco, Bahian, Roman, Mozambican or African-Italian.
I hope my story
conjures up a socio-political reflection on the complexity of this issue.
Like many other 2nd gen. immigrants, other foreigners residing here in Italy,
I am also a mediator between past and future,
between three different continents, between different social groups.
A transcultural, hybrid individual,
probably not an easily codable one
who starting from her own existence
wants to add value to this society
We know very well that Italy is changing.
To date, there are about 1,500,000 inhabitants of foreign origin.
However, the idea of being Italian
is still strongly connected to that of being white.
And when I visit secondary schools
in these amazing multicultural classes,
and share my own experience ,
at the end of my intervention some students come to me
and say: “Do you know, the same happens to me?
I also want to add value to the society I live in.”
I firmly believe that diversity is uniqueness,
that individual potential
that defies classifications and preconceptions.
My African-European family
continues to be blessed with such uniqueness.
Now, I have an Australian sister-in-law of Jewish origins,
and a beautiful, special niece with one extra chromosome.
I hope the day will come to challenge stereotypical trivialisations
and oversimplifications that fuel discord,
and open up to complexities.
If you do so,
you’ll find our local fried fish, when served with Mozambican curry,
is mouth-watering!
(Applause)