When I arrive at the cafe where we have met, near Madrid’s Gran Vía—on whose sidewalks groups of African men usually set up shop selling fake bags until the police chase them away—Thion is eating a chocolate cake with ice cream that a man can’t miss. …Enough of the clichés. Or not. Despite having seen, and heard, him previously on the podcast There are no blacks in Tibet, one never ceases to be surprised when this imposing big black man stands up and greets with an Andalusian accent that makes you laugh at María Jesús Montero’s. We talk about prejudices and other flaws, our own and those of others, in this interview.
In their social networks He defines himself by saying: “I am a natural black.” Sure?
Without colorants or preservatives. 100% Senegalese. The only one in my family, too.
It’s hesitating me.
No, my mother was born in Senegal and is black, with Spanish nationality. My three brothers were born in Spain. I arrived in Huelva when I was two years old and I could have been Spanish, but, not being able to have dual nationality, I preferred my Senegalese passport because of the roots, to have something from there.
Well, I have read that, as a child in Andalusia, he did not want to know anything about his country or his countrymen.
Yes. In Algeciras, I was one of the only two or three black people in the institute and I had the same prejudices as the whites. I didn’t want to be confused with those who were on the streets. My mother asked her to let me straighten my hair or dye it blonde. Racism affects you regardless of your skin color and I have been racist too. In Spain, the cool black is the American, Will Smith type, not the African. It was later, spending a year in Senegal, playing basketball, and then, settling in Madrid and meeting other black people, reading and reflecting, that I fell off my horse. Stopping being racist takes work.
My mother, older and sick, did not want a black person to take care of her. Is that being racist?
That is racist behavior that has to do with a mental structure, prejudices and a decades-old narrative. Not all racism involves hate. It happens to me every day, on the street. You notice that you generate tension. They see the black person before the person. Not always for the worse. I remember, years ago, being with my brothers on the beach and a woman holding the little girl, who was a baby, in her arms. When I called her attention, she told me that she was very cute and she couldn’t help it. Sorry? Do you hold an unknown baby by the face? We blacks are just that, blacks, as if we were props, and we activate another series of logics and behaviors in others. Not to mention the sexual topics.
I imagine it refers to the saying “there is no complete woman…”
“..until a black man puts it in you.” Exact. That he can be flattering, at a given moment, I do not deny. But the thing is, from that saying, and about blacks having a great time, to blacks stealing, there is one step. The logic is the same. And I’m telling you, I have been stopped by the police several times in one day, and they have told them on Tinder, in the first sentence, that they like black eggplants, and I have replied that they should go to Mercadona. [muestra la conversación en el móvil].
You are a comedian for a reason.
Humor is my best anti-racist weapon. Moral superiority scares me, because each person has their own processes and experiences, and you cannot put yourself in their shoes. So, I try to make humor that neutralizes those prejudices. I have a joke where I say that I’m super nervous because I have a test to play the Wizard King in an ad and I don’t know which one. That joke works because it exposes us all. It turns out that a white man can paint himself black and be Baltasar, but I, a black man, cannot paint myself white and be Gaspar. You have to relax.
What jokes offend you?
I think you can make humor out of absolutely everything. But, if you are going to do it with something that does not concern you, find out first. Making poop, ass, fart, pee, or big-eared humor is easy, children do it in kindergarten. The difficult thing is to make humor about sensitive topics without offending anyone and being funny, even laughing at yourself. The one I like the most about my show, Españul, is one in which I recreate a date with a white girl. When we arrived at her house, she suggestively asked me: is it true what they say about black people? I tell him yes. Then, I voluptuously take off my shirt. I take off my belt and tie her to the bed. And I take the TV and leave. People laugh because she sees herself portrayed.
In ‘The law of the sea’ he plays a boat migrant. Was it difficult for you to get into the role?
When I received the script, my first impulse was to say no. It was my representative who told me to read it correctly and not incorrectly, because my character, Barack, has a whole story and a plot arc: a father who emigrates for his children. Normally, we black people are called upon to be Immigrant 1. And I don’t have any problem, the problem is that, since those roles are usually the depth of a puddle, you can’t prove your worth and they call you all the time to play Immigrant 1. It is very difficult to have a career. They don’t let you develop.
How do you feel when you see the poor living ‘manteros’ from Gran Via? Many are his countrymen.
I have friends who have been through it. Sometimes, they are qualified people who may have been leaving home for five years, each with their own motivations and who, upon arriving, try to spend two years living poorly in Spain until they can work legally. They are people who try to make a living the best way they can, when the easy thing would be to start stealing cell phones.
What do you think of those who link immigration and crime?
Which is the same pattern. That kind of propaganda-first logic of blaming others. Migrants, black or not, are neither angels nor demons, we are like everyone else.
I think he lives in a shared apartment with another African and a Bulgarian. His house is like the UN.
And my landlord is Chinese, maybe that’s why he didn’t give us any problems when we called to rent the apartment to him three years ago. I am proud of the group we have created. I have already said that nobody is perfect. One of my roommates, Michael, is from Ghana, and he was one of those two or three black people who went to high school with me in Algeciras. Well then. He is gay. And when I was little, I was one of those who broke the dolls he played with. Here we all have to check ourselves.
‘ESPAÑUL’
It is the title of the monologue in which Lamine Thior (Senegal, 33 years old), dismantles the clichés about blacks and whites in Spain with laughter. Thior arrived in Andalusia at the age of two with her father, a fisherman, and her mother, and they settled in Huelva. After the death of her father, she lived and grew up with her mother in Algeciras, where she studied high school before pursuing a degree in Tourism. After spending a year in her country, Senegal, as part of the youth team of the national basketball team, she returned to Spain and settled in Madrid, where she combines her concern for anti-racist activism and her passion for communication and humor. As an actor, he has just released ‘The Law of the Sea’, alongside Luis Tosar and Blanca Portillo, a drama inspired by a real case of rescuing a boat with migrants in the Mediterranean.
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