It is interpreted the same way in South America too. On top of the well-known arrogance. It's a false dichotomy.
Argentina players singing racist chant targeting French players after Copa America final
- Thread starter Gandalf Greyhame
- Start date
Africans have virtues and physical advantages to play soccer?
So are you saying we should sign Elon Musk? Charlize Theron for the women's team?
Also there was slavery in Buenos Aires until 1861: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0157.xml.
I was once called “negro” by an Argentinian who was darker than me.
Exactly this.
It's a lack of understanding of French society. Or most West-European societies for that matter.
This post hasn't had the appreciation it deserves given how it bypasses the inconsequential shitstorm and addresses the real crux of the matter constructively.
I'm afraid I can't like posts though.
More of this.
Your country doesn't get to decide what racism is.
Which country decides that?
I assumed it before writing the first comment, but trying to contextualize and give a historical review and mark the differences between European (or French) culture and Argentina apparently was a waste of time, some are on a moral pedestal (almost bordering on arrogance) and are not willing to listen to other bells other than their own, they did not even make an effort to understand or analyze the entire contextualization, this comment makes it clear that some people take the Racism debate as a laugh and that the real The reason for the indignation is that there is a special anger against Argentina (and perhaps South America) on the part of some (and I am not generalizing as many of you do), who have been looking closely at the Argentine National Team for a long time, waiting for the moment to charge them. Somehow, that seems even more pathetic to me: use a noble cause only for a particular interest.
Let them know that it is more racist to assume that the song tries to discriminate against blacks, that says more about you than about others, as the saying goes "the thief believes that they are all of the same condition as him"
Also, according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Argentines, these were the formally counted population numbers:
| Year | Population | % of Argentina |
|---|---|---|
| 1778 | 68,465 | 36.82% |
| 2010 | 149,493 | 0.37% |
| 2022 | 302,936 | 0.66% |
The Argentinian population was obviously small in 1778 and the huge influx of white migrants in the 19th century was a key cause to the relative reduction of the white population, but that wasn't an accident: the governments of the time actively strived to whiten Argentina's population, also through policies that caused black people to want to marry whites for their future.
The Wikipedia article discusses this in significant detail, but here's a quote from the 1895 Census: "It will not take long for the population to be completely unified into a beautiful new white race."
And here's a quote from 1905 that's considered typical of the time: "Little by little, this race is becoming extinct... The race is losing its primitive colour in the mixture. It becomes gray. It dissolves. It lightens. The African tree is producing white Caucasian flowers."
So it seems pretty obvious that Argentinian society in the 19th century was deeply racist and that this contributed to the relative disappearance of the black population.
I'll add that this is nothing special for the time. Racism was rife among governing economic, and cultural elites all over Europe and the Americas during this time period. So I'm not trying to say that Argentina was particularly racist, but that this stance that Argentina really wasn't racist is absurd. I would also suggest that this stance (among those that hold it) is probably part of the reason why a lot of Argentinians are appearing blind to racism.
(I'll also add that I think @Just Hope has contributed some excellent posts to the discussion, that seem to put things in context really well.)
On the contrary, you come in here repeating arguments that have been extensively discussed and partly (or completely) debunked already, and now you're annoyed that we're not accepting it as Truth.
And now you've sunk so low as to suggest that people are pointing out the racism in the song out of spite against the Argentinian national team (totally unfounded, just a random ad hominem accusation), and that the real racism is that some thing the song is racist (which is an absurd reversal).
I'm sorry, but this is a very poor contribution to the discussion.
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No individual country does. I'm pretty happy to accept the black French players opinions on the topic(not that I needed them to make me know straight away what the song was).
Man, I would just use your words as a trigger, Im' not judging your view or yourself, just in case.
"In Conclusion, is the song bad? YES, IT IS VERY OFFENSIVE"
The song comes from a very misguided Football Lore, yes it's true. YET in that Lore, there are no rules or limits regarding xenophobia, racism, digs on genre, sexual orientation, social "level", etc...in that sense it's quite low key, it could have been way worse sadly.
So in the same way few people raises a hand if players/clubs are called cnuts, your wife is a whore, fecking midget, sudaca, paleto, retard, etc etc without involving a race or xenophobic slurr, ALL OF THEM have a "bad origin": The ONE that believes that a certain group, country, social background, genre, sexual orientation or ethnicity belongs to an inferior "place".
The song itself has a racist, xenophobic social component involved in it...and I explain it why down below...
Is the song racist? NO, AT ALL, IT WAS NEVER CREATED WITH THAT PURPOSE
It's true that at a certain degree, it wasn't created for that purpose, for chanting against black fellas, in fact in some way it's a dig against white French people. The idea is to mock the French for not using French players and using their old or current Colonies to snatch players from those areas since very young (or their fathers) and later "use" them for the NT.
A very debateable thing to say, even if it has some traction behind it too.
So at the end of the day the idea that runs under the whole concept, it's that French people CAN't be black, there IS the racial component of the song that black people in France or the world can feel offended by. Therefore there is an underlying racist/xenophobic component under it.
This football LORE should be adress? yes. If it's a song sang by fellow footballers? more. It's Enzo a racist? very much doubt it.
How should be adress the Football Lore? not precisly in a very silly way that it was portraited here in many posts I've read. But I don't have a real answer to that. And I do think also that there are lots of other "groups" included in such lore that should be analyzed and actually try to rethink the whole thing not just by the surface.
JUST AS A SIDE NOTE: Seeing lots of posts regarding how it's the deal down here, I'll give my input. So a final rant about social and ethnical and background in Argentina:
Regarding the silly armchair debate if Argentina it's racist or not, the country has it's racist/xenophobic component as any country in the world but its' not normally focus on black people. Like most cases in the world it's more social related and associate to a certain ethnical background with poor origins and their menace to society than anything, the usual inmigration it's the scapegoat (even the migration from inside, meaning the one from the rural areas to the Metropolis).
In fact as silly as it might sound, people like Enzo, with an amerindian look, are the ones that deal on daily basis with more prejudiced even if nowadays this ethnical background it's by far the more predominant in Argentina. The suppose predominant white Argentina does not exist anymore since time and this sometimes triggers some of the real racist fellas down here, like it happens in the USA or other Eruopean countries when certain countries and their ethnical origin it's not considered desireable or closer to the establishment.
Back to football, the Lore of course would involve chants or mockery against black people, but in a way that it's sadly a default in the whole world, hundreds of years of slavery and the status of black people are still present as an easy target, even if in every day life down here, black people are more prone to be seen as cool, rare and not a menace to "the society".
On the other hand inmigrant people from neigbour countries, more if they have some amerindian look and people from inside the country with an amerindian background are normally more stigmatized.
To the extremely silly point that you can easily see fans from rivals clubs with such ethnical origin giving shyte to each other with chants regarding that "brown" origin...pretty fecking stupid, but also an example of how societies divdide people that belong to people that do not belong. Sad to say the least.
Historically there are two reasons why black people aren't normally bad treated, mostly there are more scarce, (as a side note some of them have been Independence War Heroes, yet let's not dig too much why many black people have been involved In many Independence wars in the world), but mostly because they were never view as the scapegoat of financial problems, delicuency or a certain menacing religion carriers, etc due to massive inmigration.
Finally even if there still exist prejudiced towards an amerindian look that I've mentioned above and it's the main racial/xenophobic issue. The society itself it's quite diverse, the Spanniards since day one and the main Religion: Catholicism didn't went against mixed race relantionships, nor mixed religion marriages and a large etc.
There isn't a puritan Religious vein in the Country, even if the inmigration from Europe also involved lots of French, German, Russian, Polish, Croat, and even Anglo people...once here those type of prejudices were sort of diluted.
It become such a melting pot, of so many people escaping tragedy, even lately there are lots of Russians and Ukranians arriving and also quite a lot of people from many Africans countries trying to reset their lifes, that mostly people just get along. Laso from Asian counties like Korea and China mostly.
This melting pot enviroment made people call Armenians a "Turco (a Turkish, yeap you've heard it), an Italian from the North can be called a "Tano" (related to be from Naple), every single Spanniard is a "Gallego", a jewish origin person is a "Ruso (Russian)", a blond fella was a "Polaco (Polish, no matter if he was Spanniard, Italian, German, English or whatever)" and "Negrito or Negro (black or blacky)" its a term of endearment, no matter if you are brown, black, white or whatever.
So it is what it is, there are mostly xenophobic waves, deep worldwide racial issues, but mostly quite a melting pot without major issues regarding Religions and race, like Apartheid or Segregattion by Law and such.
Sorry for the long post, just a very on the fly and superficial view on the subject.
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You don’t really think that, do you?
That, I think, is part of the weird defensiveness others have noted.
I've enjoyed reading some of the contributions by South Americans in this thread, the ones that give insight into the cultures of various South American countries, especially Argentina in this case. In fact, I'd love to learn more. I'm even open to understanding some of the cultural relativity that might be happening. But it's not some kind of attack on the entire country of Argentina to point out obvious racism when a handful of prominent Argentines sing an obviously racist song. What's disturbing is how many of their compatriots (from government officials to former and current players to social media users) have doubled down and even made ludicrous accusations like the one you're replying to.
I don't for one minute think all Argentines are racist, but this incident has at the very least highlighted a large blindspot there. A blindspot some of our own compatriots share when it comes to the history of our own country (Canada), although it feels like we've perhaps made a little more progress.
As for that last point - yes, definitely. That are groups that deny the negative effects of residential schools, and come disturb the child burial sites that have been discovered the past few years. Similarly, the Netherlands, my other 'home', has come closer to acknowledging its huge role in the slave trade and what it did to its colonies (primarily Indonesia and Suriname), but there's still plenty to gain. I've just not wanted to bring it up, cause it's irrelevant to the discussion and I don't want to provide fuel to whataboutism.
Very good points. The formal abolition of slavery in Europe and its colonies did not magic away the issue of racism.
Am I reading it right that the view from Argentina is that it is ok to say or do racist things provided you're not a racist?
Ok, I'm done with the internet for tonight. Bye everyone.
I see. So the real victims are Enzo and those singing the song. The real racism is calling out racism. Cool.
Yes, and I even distracted myself by thinking about it, as I wanted more to address the implication that those condemning the racist chant are somehow channeling a subconscious envy toward the current world champions. It's ludicrous on so many levels. Most of us admired Argentina during the last World Cup and this Copa America. They're an interesting mix of aesthetically pleasing and brutal football. We're on a United forum, so many of us watched the Copa to see how Licha and Garna would do. But we might also be repelled by the likes of Emi Martinez. As exhausted as most of us are by the endless fanboy arguments between the two so-called GOATs, we've enjoyed watching Messi over the years. I've never felt any kind of universal antagonism toward the Argentina national team, even back in the "Hand of God" or the Beckham red card days (my own roots are English). To me, it was an enjoyable rivalry and the Argies always won.
But yes, without derailing the discussion into whataboutism (btw, to the person who denied this concept, would they prefer "false equivalence"?), I do feel like Argentina as a country is nowhere near the reckoning stage other nations have reached. That's not complacency, as there's still a long way to go. But I hope Argentina begins a conversation with itself on the back of such incidents as this.
Ah brilliant, the defence of racism in Argentina with the good ole tried and tested Eugenics defence.
You know how Wikipedia works, right? How on earth can you make statements like the ones above based on Wikipedia?
Firstly, that census data is wrong. I checked the linked pdf that supposedly supports it called "1778 Census" as obviously the INDEC didn't exist so could hardly publish that. It's a scan of a book containing census data of a single region (later province, Catamarca) where 15,000 people lived in total (3-4% of the country's population).
Second, what sort of agenda is likely to drive someone editing such a subject matter? Don't you find it fishy that the section listing places where the black contingent was large deliberately did not include the data for Buenos Aires? Can you think of a single reason a sane unbiased contributor wouldn't include that data point? Can you think of any reason to exclude it other than "shit, it doesn't fit my angle"?
Finally, of course anyone can find quotes from racist people with grand plans that sound awful, that holds for any country. I won't even bother check them because they are most likely true, even if quite probably from people not in a position to do feck all with regards to execution (else that would have been highlighted with neon lights and you would have seen fit to do so as well).
None of that supports your making of such a strong and definitive statement as "it seems pretty obvious that Argentinian society in the 19th century was deeply racist and that this contributed to the relative disappearance of the black population"
As a parallel, I'll make an equally absurd logical argument despite being based on much more compelling and accurate evidence. Hopefully through the path of what you know to be absurd it will sink in. In 1952, the British government chemically castrated a brilliant war hero by the name of Alan Turing, it follows that all Brits are homophobes
Feck me, you are the ones doing quality control here?
At the end of the day, Enzo has apologized, and the issue will be dealt with by Chelsea. I invite everyone who wants to visit Argentina. You will find us to be very different from what some random opinion makes us out to be, and hopefully, you can form your own opinion. It is also a good opportunity for a budget holiday because it is pretty cheap.
What? If you're trying to draw a parallel to:You know how Wikipedia works, right? How on earth can you make statements like the ones above based on Wikipedia?
Firstly, that census data is wrong. I checked the linked pdf that supposedly supports it called "1778 Census" as obviously the INDEC didn't exist so could hardly publish that. It's a scan of a book containing census data of a single region (later province, Catamarca) where 15,000 people lived in total (3-4% of the country's population).
Second, what sort of agenda is likely to drive someone editing such a subject matter? Don't you find it fishy that the section listing places where the black contingent was large deliberately did not include the data for Buenos Aires? Can you think of a single reason a sane unbiased contributor wouldn't include that data point? Can you think of any reason to exclude it other than "shit, it doesn't fit my angle"?
Finally, of course anyone can find quotes from racist people with grand plans that sound awful, that holds for any country. I won't even bother check them because they are most likely true, even if quite probably from people not in a position to do feck all with regards to execution (else that would have been highlighted with neon lights and you would have seen fit to do so as well).
None of that supports your making of such a strong and definitive statement as "it seems pretty obvious that Argentinian society in the 19th century was deeply racist and that this contributed to the relative disappearance of the black population"
As a parallel, I'll make an equally absurd logical argument despite being based on much more compelling and accurate evidence. Hopefully through the path of what you know to be absurd it will sink in. In 1952, the British government chemically castrated a brilliant war hero by the name of Alan Turing, it follows that all Brits are homophobes
Feck me, you are the ones doing quality control here?
"It seems pretty obvious that Argentinian society in the 19th century was deeply racist and that this contributed to the relative disappearance of the black population"
then a more accurate (though still not exact) equivalent would be:
"In 1952, the British government chemically castrated a brilliant war hero by the name of Alan Turing; it follows that British society in the mid twentieth century was deeply homophobic."
Which few would argue against. Your conclusion (bolded) isn't even a parallel.
For the most part all that has been used to say they are and always have been racist.
But yeah, I'll entertain your correction:
"In 1952, the British government chemically castrated a brilliant war hero by the name of Alan Turing. The democratically elected British government didn't apologise for this until 2009, three years later a different democratically elected government retracted the apology as out of place given that in 1952 he had indeed committed a crime, the Queen didn't apologise until 2013 and Parliament didn't pass a Law retroactively absolving those guilty of buggery until 2017. It follows that British society in the mid twentieth century was deeply homophobic and less than 15 years ago where still terribly confused about the whole issue"
Better?
I would love to visit one day. Any advice for an outsider?
Quality control
Argentina is a horrible country.
As American, I would take the worst of France over the best of Argentina. No question.
Fecking hell in a thread full of intentional and unintentional racism, just labeling a country as horrible has to take the cake.
WTF hahaha, that's so wrong that's actually funny
Ah we’re going down this pathetic route again. This coming from someone whose country has made war crimes fashionable.To be fair, Argentina had a time with that as well.
I say that to point out… it’s stupid to argue over that stuff
Still the original sentence it's so over the top, that actually works as a great hiperbole and its trully kind of funny.
I've missed this part...THAT IT's SO NO TRUE.
Negro (black) it's not always used reffering to actually trully african american black people, but mostly towards amerindians, mestizos or even Euro origin dark skin people. It can be a term of endearment a lot of times, but it doesn't take away that it's also very a derogatory term.
PD: the worse and sillier example is the "negro de mente" claim because it's even worse.
Anyway, going back to the original issue that generateed this thread, the real issue here it's the whole Football Folklore around the world (not just in Argentina) that always used derogatory terms normally associated to minorities, genres, xenophobic stuff, people with medical conditions or social relegated ones, etc...how can this be solved? I dunno, but it certainly doesn't have its origin in football and certainly won't be solved from there.
Yet to the very least Pro Football players can start to be more aware and having more empathy towards their colleagues that even with no real ill intention a certain song with clear racial, xenophobic undertones can trigger to the very least a lot of fellow workers. That to the very least it's some sort of start.
On a purely practical level, if you are going to constantly make offensive comments or jokes, you are bound to cross a line, to racism, homophobia, misognyny, or general dishonor. When that happens, there'll be consequences you can't control.
If Argentinians' 'football folklore' is to constantly make offensive jokes then they're likely cross a line, and develop a bad reputation for it, one that they may feel doesn't reflect their character. Argentinians have two options: they can accept this as the cost of their 'banter', or they can change their culture. There isn't really a third option.
If Argentinians' 'football folklore' is to constantly make offensive jokes then they're likely cross a line, and develop a bad reputation for it, one that they may feel doesn't reflect their character. Argentinians have two options: they can accept this as the cost of their 'banter', or they can change their culture. There isn't really a third option.
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It's pretty clear what you're suggesting here. So, let's test it.
Here is the quote where specific regions are named:
Your claim is that Buenos Aires is deliberately left out of this list because it contradicts the narrative. From what I can find, in 1778 the population of Buenos Aires consisted of 17 % black people. It seems to me that would fit very nicely into the list, and moreover, is perfectly consistent with the claim that the national average was 30 %, don't you think?
You know how Wikipedia works, right? How on earth can you make statements like the ones above based on Wikipedia?
Firstly, that census data is wrong. I checked the linked pdf that supposedly supports it called "1778 Census" as obviously the INDEC didn't exist so could hardly publish that. It's a scan of a book containing census data of a single region (later province, Catamarca) where 15,000 people lived in total (3-4% of the country's population).
Second, what sort of agenda is likely to drive someone editing such a subject matter? Don't you find it fishy that the section listing places where the black contingent was large deliberately did not include the data for Buenos Aires? Can you think of a single reason a sane unbiased contributor wouldn't include that data point? Can you think of any reason to exclude it other than "shit, it doesn't fit my angle"?
Finally, of course anyone can find quotes from racist people with grand plans that sound awful, that holds for any country. I won't even bother check them because they are most likely true, even if quite probably from people not in a position to do feck all with regards to execution (else that would have been highlighted with neon lights and you would have seen fit to do so as well).
None of that supports your making of such a strong and definitive statement as "it seems pretty obvious that Argentinian society in the 19th century was deeply racist and that this contributed to the relative disappearance of the black population"
As a parallel, I'll make an equally absurd logical argument despite being based on much more compelling and accurate evidence. Hopefully through the path of what you know to be absurd it will sink in. In 1952, the British government chemically castrated a brilliant war hero by the name of Alan Turing, it follows that all Brits are homophobes
Feck me, you are the ones doing quality control here?
British society in the mid 20th century was deeply homophobic though? In fact the Turing example is a literal perfect example of that? Nobody sane would even think to dispute that statement.
Not to mention that the poster you've quoted has no link to the UK whatsoever.
How about the people actually affected by the racism?
No problem buddy. I'm glad this happened, the French FA and black players got what they deserved. Carry on.