Racism has become glocal

The racism of the past: always sinister, integral, but simple. Today’s: parceled out, container of many ailments, three-dimensional, good (ie bad) for everything. Local, regional, national, religious instances. Glocal, one might say. Racism is now a garment for all seasons, a comfortable insult that sticks to everyone, you don’t even have to force yourself, verbal laziness leads there. Often double-faced: those who suffer it replicate it, without originality.

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The Barcelona basketball team bus is greeted at the WiZink Center in Madrid by the chants: “Barça, racista, España es madridista”, “hijos de puta”, “perros” or “ratas asquerosas”. No need to translation, perhaps only for the last: disgusting rats. Furthermore, the Barcelona coach, the Lithuanian Sarunas Jasikevicius, denounces intolerant offenses against one of his players, James Nnaji, born in Nigeria. It should be noted that the Real Madrid club has launched a campaign in favor of his footballer, the Brazilian Vinicius Junior, object of racist chants in Spain. In Rio de Janeiro, out of solidarity, the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado went out for an hour. So in Madrid people suffer for Vinicius and reciprocate offending Nnaji?

Let’s move on to Austria where the Republic of Ireland Under 21 friendly match was played against Kuwait Under 22. The match was suspended at 3-0 for the Irish after they denounced racist insults against a member of their team. It was coach Jim Crawford who ordered his players to leave the field during the second half. His name is James Abankwah the defender born in Dublin, who among other things plays in Italy in Udinese, victim of bad words. He is originally from Ghana. He expands the casuistry: an Arab who denigrates an African, considered inferior. The Kuwaiti federation rejected the accusations arguing that the match was suspended by the referee “due to the hardness and tensions on the pitch between the players” and “to protect the players from possible injuries”. Bizarre reasoning. Austria, on the same day, in another friendly, New Zealand withdrew from the match against Qatar between the first and second half, declaring that one of their players had been discriminated against: defender Michael Boxall, Qatar had obtained a free kick for a foul on Yusuf Abdurisag and Boxall (he was not the author of the foul) ran to the referee to protest and then said something to the Quatarino player on the ground Abdurisag got up, went towards Boxall, and yelled something at him half the New Zealand team came and some players asked the referee: “But did you hear what he said?”. The whistler, the Austrian Manuel Schüttengruber, did not make any decision and New Zealand did not resubmitted on the field. Boxall is a mixed race, born in Auckland, of Samoan origins. Abdurisag is Somali, born in Mogadishu. Not white versus black, not an argument over difference, but two men with the same skin color. They could have easily sent themselves to hell instead they would have chosen a racial offense.

His name is James. Not Bond, but McLean. He is the most hated player in England. “And I’m also the one most discriminated against.” Midfielder, 34 years old, was born in Derry, officially Ulster, should wear the shirt of the national team of Belfast, of the Northern team, but he has chosen the green one of the Republic of Ireland (only rugby has a single team). James grew up in the Creggan district, with a strong Catholic concentration, where the violence of the Troubles are not forgotten troubles and neither is the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 30th ’72, when a battalion of British paratroopers opened fire on the crowd that was marching the civil rights of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland. Some memories don’t even blow away the strong wind. Every time McLean goes to take a corner kick, they yell “fucking Irishman” and “fenian bastard”. The Fenians were a movement that wanted to liberate Ireland from English rule. Plus there’s always someone waving the Ulster flag in front of him and he then shows off the ‘Free Derry’ tattoo on his left thigh. The inscription is still on the gable of the McKane family home at number 33 Lecky Road, painted by Liam Hillen at dawn on 5 January 1969: “You Are Now Entering Free Derry” and not Londonderry, signaled that you were entering the fort of Bogside, Catholic quarter of the city, area of ​​social opposition often ended in bloodshed. McLean has his ideas about him and he doesn’t hide them: on every Remembrance Day, the day when the fallen of the First World War are remembered in England, he refuses to wear the red poppy for the role that the British army had in the conflict with Northern Ireland. You got it, it’s a symbol of the anti-British struggle. And he took the liberty of not honoring Queen Elizabeth’s death. On the occasion of Huddersfield-Wigan he broke away from the embrace of his companions during the minute’s silence, he remained on the sidelines, with his hands behind his back and his head down, even though he wore the black armband. The most hateful and obscene insults, even those against the Pope, come from Northern Ireland, from the Protestant side, the one to which George Best belonged from Belfast, Ballon d’Or winner in ’68. It’s funny that George had inherited his formidable outburst from religion, because in the Catholic area where he went to school he had to discard the many attacks. Of course, other times and another irony, when in ’71 Best went to Manchester United for a match in Newcastle and a letter signed by the IRA warned: “If Best enters, we’ll kill him”. George not only played, but scored, and the opposing coach declared, “He’d better have shot that pain in the ass.” To go back to McLean, they’ve been singing chants to him so explicitly for ten years that even his 7-year-old son who goes to the games has asked his mom why the crowd shouts at his father. James is not one to keep quiet: «What leaves a bitter taste in my mouth is that I have received more abuse than any other footballer in England: death threats, bullets sent by post. It’s not a complaint, but a cue to ask: What’s the difference? Why is nobody responsible for what they do to me? I’ve seen some of my fellow Irishmen post a black square for anti-racism, rightly so. But have you ever seen any of them publicly condemn the hate I receive, which is also against them? I would say no. Is there one discrimination stronger than another?».

On June 10, 1946, the American Jack Johnson, the first black boxer to win the heavyweight title (1908), stopped on US Highway 1 in a restaurant in North Carolina and argued because they didn’t let him in: “No entry to dogs and blacks.” He got back into his Lincoln, skidded, hit a pole, and died in the only hospital that accepted people his color. He had scared America, not just with his fists: three wives, all white. Today sport often frees, but also imprisons. We discriminate, because everyone does so. Indiscriminately.