Lettre à « un Ministre »
This letter may have been addressed to Jules Moch, following a France Culture broadcast that brought them together on 9 April 1970. Written a month later, it would be consistent with an ongoing rhythm of correspondence and debate, as Jean Seberg and Romain Gary each continued, in their own way, the fight against discrimination.
In Beverly Hills, where he had joined his wife, Jean Seberg, Romain Gary encountered a German shepherd trained to attack Black people. The year was 1968; America was living through the darkest hours of segregation, and Gary was writing a masterpiece, Chien blanc (White Dog). “I find myself thinking that the Black problem in the United States poses a question that makes it virtually insoluble: the question of Stupidity. It has its roots in the depths of the greatest spiritual power of all time, which is Idiocy.”
“Monsieur le Ministre,
I believe we have misunderstood one another. The idea of ‘dismissing’ you as purely ‘verbal’ is far from my mind. But, being very far removed from Christian or Judaic sentiments in this domain, I believe that racism must be fought with its own weapons, that is to say by the physical extermination of the germs and carriers, but only insofar as they move beyond verbal seepage to become physically and structurally dangerous. Your methods have always been civilized. You are far too honorable people. Having physically exterminated, in my lifetime, a very considerable number of racists, and being prepared, with friends, to continue, I see in your way of fighting only a far too noble approach to the problem of human paranoia and its clinical manifestations. Far from wishing to offend you, I simply wanted to spare you the compromise of association with us, who have dirty hands and who are prepared to go still further… I would be grateful if you would keep this letter personal. Most respectfully, Romain Gary.”
Chien blanc offers many illustrations of this “stupidity,” lived and sometimes reversed, since in the central thread of the book Keys, the Black trainer, does everything he can to turn “White Dog into Black Dog,” in a cold revenge that leads him to use the same methods to oppress white people in turn. Beyond the fable, it is America gripped by the demons of endemic racism, and the question of minorities, that Gary wished to address, at a time when Jean Seberg’s activism gave Gary the occasion to mix intensively with the radical circles of Hollywood mobilizing in support of Black Americans — circles toward which he showed considerable irony.
The book was brilliantly adapted for the screen by Samuel Fuller.