If it's not making monkey noises at African players during soccer matches, making fun of Chinese facial features during the Olympics or wearing blackface to racially insult Lewis Hamilton, it's just not Spain.
You can always count on the Spanish to do something horrifically racist while screaming that they aren't racist as much as you can count on the sun rising and setting. Someone in Spain has set up a website called "Burst Hamilton's Tire" in English that "encourages visitors to leave ‘virtual nails’ on a mock-up of the Brazilian racetrack where he hopes to win the drivers’ championship this Sunday".
A nice feature of the website allows fans to leave comments and they haven't disappointed.
More than 16,000 racist messages using terms like "nigger" and "half-breed" have been posted on a Spanish website.Let's not leave out the messages calling for Hamilton to kill himself.
One, calling himself David, left a message saying: "---- you -------. Monkey."
Another, dubbed Hamilton a conguito – a type of chocolate sweet with racist overtones – and wrote: "Conguito, you are going to die."
One message on the site, from a man calling himself Carrillo, says: ‘Half-breed, kill yourself in your car.’
Another, from ‘Alberto’, says: ‘I hope you run over your dad in the first pit stop, Hamilton.
It's not clear what's more amazing about the phenomenon of racism in Spanish sport. Is it the acts of racism or the absolute denials of it by the Spanish? Cesc Fabregas, Rudy Fernandez and Pau Gasol among others have all come out denying that the Spanish are racist. Not once have we seen any athlete or person in charge of sport condemn the acts of racism that are almost too many to count. One would think Spanish basketball players that ply their trade in the NBA or soccer players who play on multi-national club teams would be a bit more sensitive to racism but then again we're not dealing with astrophysicists here.
Don't count on the sporting associations such as F1, FIFA or UEFA to do anything. They're too busy rollin' like playboys and coming down on countries and teams they don't like. Even when they punish teams, the fines are laughable or they reverse themselves as seen in the Athletico Madrid-Liverpool Champions League match this season. UEFA banned the match from being played in Madrid after racist taunts during the Athletico-Marseille match but they reversed themselves and the game went on as scheduled.
Nothing will change until Spain is held to account and they are made to suffer by taking away sporting events and imposing heavy fines and bans. Here's to Hamilton winning the title and destroys the field in the process. Hopefully, he'll follow that up by dumping whatever tranny he's dating from the Pussycat Girls and finds himself a nice girl like that Gabrielle Union. Gabby will give it up to any athlete any time, anywhere. That girl fine! I'd tell Gabby about my college lacrosse career but I just can't deal with having Jason Kidd's sloppy seconds. There have to be some sports blogger status hoes out there. We've not above getting some Bill Cosby/Sebastian Janikowski time in with you. What's that? No, baby. That's not a roofie. Email us at the Deuce if you're in the mood for some sexual healing. Chimp's off the market. Sorry, no hot monkey love for you.
3 comments:
The thing is you are doing here exactly what you claim to disapprove of: that is, tagging an entire country as racist by the acts of some morons. Undoubtedly, there are many racists in Spain and the general attitude towards race is more blunt, as people tend to be over there, with less PC speech than what you are used to in the US or the UK. Nevertheless, the reaction in these last two countries to things like the "chinese incident" seem to me as completely blown out of proportion; with an excess of righteousness that is out of place. I have read editorials in US newspapers calling Mexicans illiterate and telling all Spanish-speaking persons to head south inmediately, etc. Similar things could surely be said if you listened to Savage, Coulter or Limbaugh for long enough; you will have enough racism to last you a lifetime. Yet, you do not see foreigners berating the US for these things. If you want to police the city, you should start by your own neighbourhood.
What difference does it make if similar things are said here by wack jobs on the radio? Does it make what's happening in Spain any less wrong? This is the typical response of someone who doesn't want to face up to their problems. The reaction to the Chinese incident was not overblown. It was wrong and racist whether you want to admit it or not. One thing you can say is that what happens at sporting events in Spain would not happen here. Did it back in the day? Yes but it doesn't happen anymore. The Spanish media and sporting authorities do nothing to stop it so they are complicit. Of course everyone in Spain isn't racist. You would have a case if anyone did anything about it but no one does. Racism is not being less PC. Have you considered that people don't do it at sporting events because they know it's wrong and it won't be tolerated? One the rare occasions that it does happen, it gets shut down immediately. For all the Savage, Coulter, Limbaugh and other wack jobs, you have people who call them out for what they are. Where are these people in Spain? Where are the teams, the associations, and media outlets calling for a stop to this behavior? Where are the massive fines and bans? Where was anyone when Aragones called Henry a black shit and the media said it was blown out of proportion? To argue that prejudice here prevents one from speaking about it elsewhere is idiotic and just so you know foreigners do comment on these papers and pundits that make racist statements. Try reading some of them. They have every right to do it and they should. This is the same response that the papers in Spain throw out at people who call out these incidents. "You have racists so you can't come down on us." I suppose you'll say the foreign papers are being PC for calling out the racist monkey chants at Eto'o this past weekend. One can and should criticize prejudice wherever it may be whether at home or abroad. If people stopped tolerating it in sport, it wouldn't happen. The Limbaughs and Coulters have plenty of critics here and if you don't know that, you should look into it. Feel free to criticize clowns like Hannity or Savage but don't try to say their existence prevents us or any other non-Spanish for calling out b.s. when we see it.
One more thing. Everyone in Spain is not a racist but you have to realize that "these morons" give people who don't know better a certain impression of the country when these incidents happen on almost a weekly basis. Having witnessed some first hand, it is disgusting and it has to stop. If teams start getting significant fines and bans, things might start changing. There are players who don't want to play in Spain because of the abuse. Yes there are still many problems here as well as in many countries but the answer is not to say that we shouldn't talk about problems elsewhere until things are perfect at home.
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