Any problem with Eastern Europeans? You are not better then them.
Racism in Italy - even anti-racism is filled with racism
- Thread starter Ødegaard
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@FreddieTheReddie is right, that's a really silly thing to say, especially in the context of this thread
In the context of this forum, its not silly thing to say but you two are kinda new and i dont have time to explain.
I think he's sarcastic, making the implication that there is a tendency to only think of Eastern European clubs being racist and now there's an Italian club doing it too.
Is ignorance and education really where we are at in 2021 with racism?
I hope this bit makes sense, there are what I would call maybe newer concepts that maybe need education to overcome them. Probably a bad example but the rights of LGBTQ are more of a recent phenomena than race. Not the issue itself maybe but things like legislation around same sex marriage and the whole transgender debate/issues.
Although no excuse for using certain terminology or depictions I can maybe see more of a ignorance and education viewpoint with say LGBTQ. Especially amongst maybe the older generations. But race after all these years with legislation and awareness courses and programmes from schools to work place etc?
Don't get me wrong there is no place for either and I think there has been plenty of education etc over the years for LGBTQ too. As I say it maybe the wrong example but I've been reading how likes of Matt Damon have recently come out and said they didn't realize the impact of certain words so it just sprung to mind.
Hope that makes sense.
I hope this bit makes sense, there are what I would call maybe newer concepts that maybe need education to overcome them. Probably a bad example but the rights of LGBTQ are more of a recent phenomena than race. Not the issue itself maybe but things like legislation around same sex marriage and the whole transgender debate/issues.
Although no excuse for using certain terminology or depictions I can maybe see more of a ignorance and education viewpoint with say LGBTQ. Especially amongst maybe the older generations. But race after all these years with legislation and awareness courses and programmes from schools to work place etc?
Don't get me wrong there is no place for either and I think there has been plenty of education etc over the years for LGBTQ too. As I say it maybe the wrong example but I've been reading how likes of Matt Damon have recently come out and said they didn't realize the impact of certain words so it just sprung to mind.
Hope that makes sense.
Pardon me, what do you think they were doing then?
Deliberately trying to offend asians? Making a political point against anti-racisim and political correctness? Winding up followers?...
On Juventus Women official twitter account?!
which indeed is another way of saying that they didn't know how offensive that gesture would be considered
Fair enough, I didn't get the sarcasm
They knew it was offensive, they just didn't care that it was. That's the point.
To be honest in Italy it's not. It barely made the news in the first place and is now already long forgotten. It's the UK and the US where it's blown up into something bigger.
No. The whole point is how they knew and how they didn't care.
Of course it is - and always will be.
Assuming that everybody everywhere is on the same page in terms of culture and experiences is a very nasty mistake.
Don't judge the racist act? Aren't you judging it ask ignorance?
She's a 20 something italian, living in Italy, in 2021. Unless she's literally spent the last decade under a rock, she knows the gesture is offensive
And the social media manager abso-fecking-lutely would know, too. The fecking job involves being on social media a lot
Yeah, no, this is a bs excuse. We're one still one of the biggest countries in western society. We get a lot of influence from the USA, we're big on social media, etc. The whole "it's not something well known in my culture" doesn't fly for Italy. Not when it comes to well known issues in western societies
Don't judge people.
Don't judge people that you don't know over single acts that you object to.
It's a life precept no less wise than "don't mock people", and no harder to follow, yet we all break it all the time in real life and on the net.
Condensing your posts, she's a "mean racist cnut".
Hi all,
I am an Italian national from Rome who lived also in London and Berlin.
I'd love to start by saying that I am appalled by the attitude of my fellow countrymen that instead of listening to the point of view of foreign citizens who are offended by certain behaviour, they just adopt pointless defensive tactics such as claiming that the UK is also racist. Not only in my judgement claiming that the UK might be comparably racist as Italy is would be either a lie or the thought of someone who's completely delusional, but the topic isn't also relevant as one being worse than Italy would not make the situation in the peninsula any better.
The Italian sense of humor is by default aggressive and very much offensive and this means that even friends mock each other with strong words related to physical appearance, alleged mental impairment, real dark humor that would be considered even passable of court judgement in the UK or the US. It's not uncommon to hear parents to call their children "r--ards" or worse and believe me that in their mind that isn't anything but a joke. You may argue that bullying is considered acceptable and that is the underlying issue in our culture. Most people think: "If you have some quirk, from the way you dress to how you move, then it is in my right to laugh about you and you have to man up or do something about it". When I came to the UK, I did realise that my Roman sense of humor didn't fit and I had to work on myself really hard to change it accordingly.
The Juve tweet is a byproduct of the culture above, the same that you might witness in the below shows broadcasted on national TV(search these keywords on youtube because I am not allowed to post media yet)
Marco Mazzocca Filippino
Zampetti si prepara per l'esame
In the first video there's a Comedian who impersonates a cleaner from Philippine and in the second an African man who acts as educated servant of an ignorant Northern Italian Employer. The first video is recent whilst the second is from the late 80s, hence another issue we have to consider: Italy is a country in which fecundity rate has been extremely low in the past 30 years and the mortality rate even lower! In a country where 25% of the population is above 60 year old, how evolved do you think the mentality can be? Another issue is that only 8% of the population has a foreign background and even less is of colour and they are being represented as the scapegoat of all the drug trafficking and violence(low in reality but the TV and newspapers mystify the stats) in the country(below an example):
Io vendere Erba
(this guy claims he sells weed in Milan so he can move to Germany, the subtitle in the main graphics quotes "We're at mercy of the violent! Fear in Central MILAN! and this is for a guy who owns maybe 20g of weed and who says clearly that is constantly robbed and demeaned by the local Italian mafia).
There are hundreds of shows like this, where they show Muslims, Africans, Rom, Romanians and Chinese citizens in weird settings, edited in videos where people claim they like to rob Italians and not pay taxes while horror music is being played in the background. So the average Italian does not trust foreigners, especially if they come from poor countries, these people are more aporophobic than racist, fairly ignorant.
Then there is a good 15% of the country who is openly fascist and racist, a good lot of those go regularly to the stadiums, sing those ominous chants you all know and also have done stuff like the below:
https://www.thelocal.it/20171027/football-anne-frank-scandal-part-of-lazio-fans-dark-past/
What is the issue in this case? Simply that the authorities don't do anything about it: the hate law in the UK is advanced and reliable, in Italy we are discussing increasing the penalties towards those who offend LGBT members for the fact they are gay but the parties lead by Meloni, Salvini and Renzi are doing everything in their power to avoid the decree being approved by the parliament. If the law would be stricter, you'll see that even Italy would become an easier place for a black guy to play football.
All of this being said, I could add a lot more but I would like to close up this post with saying that even though my wife is black, she never fell victim of a racist episode in Italy, Germany or the UK.
I am an Italian national from Rome who lived also in London and Berlin.
I'd love to start by saying that I am appalled by the attitude of my fellow countrymen that instead of listening to the point of view of foreign citizens who are offended by certain behaviour, they just adopt pointless defensive tactics such as claiming that the UK is also racist. Not only in my judgement claiming that the UK might be comparably racist as Italy is would be either a lie or the thought of someone who's completely delusional, but the topic isn't also relevant as one being worse than Italy would not make the situation in the peninsula any better.
The Italian sense of humor is by default aggressive and very much offensive and this means that even friends mock each other with strong words related to physical appearance, alleged mental impairment, real dark humor that would be considered even passable of court judgement in the UK or the US. It's not uncommon to hear parents to call their children "r--ards" or worse and believe me that in their mind that isn't anything but a joke. You may argue that bullying is considered acceptable and that is the underlying issue in our culture. Most people think: "If you have some quirk, from the way you dress to how you move, then it is in my right to laugh about you and you have to man up or do something about it". When I came to the UK, I did realise that my Roman sense of humor didn't fit and I had to work on myself really hard to change it accordingly.
The Juve tweet is a byproduct of the culture above, the same that you might witness in the below shows broadcasted on national TV(search these keywords on youtube because I am not allowed to post media yet)
Marco Mazzocca Filippino
Zampetti si prepara per l'esame
In the first video there's a Comedian who impersonates a cleaner from Philippine and in the second an African man who acts as educated servant of an ignorant Northern Italian Employer. The first video is recent whilst the second is from the late 80s, hence another issue we have to consider: Italy is a country in which fecundity rate has been extremely low in the past 30 years and the mortality rate even lower! In a country where 25% of the population is above 60 year old, how evolved do you think the mentality can be? Another issue is that only 8% of the population has a foreign background and even less is of colour and they are being represented as the scapegoat of all the drug trafficking and violence(low in reality but the TV and newspapers mystify the stats) in the country(below an example):
Io vendere Erba
(this guy claims he sells weed in Milan so he can move to Germany, the subtitle in the main graphics quotes "We're at mercy of the violent! Fear in Central MILAN! and this is for a guy who owns maybe 20g of weed and who says clearly that is constantly robbed and demeaned by the local Italian mafia).
There are hundreds of shows like this, where they show Muslims, Africans, Rom, Romanians and Chinese citizens in weird settings, edited in videos where people claim they like to rob Italians and not pay taxes while horror music is being played in the background. So the average Italian does not trust foreigners, especially if they come from poor countries, these people are more aporophobic than racist, fairly ignorant.
Then there is a good 15% of the country who is openly fascist and racist, a good lot of those go regularly to the stadiums, sing those ominous chants you all know and also have done stuff like the below:
https://www.thelocal.it/20171027/football-anne-frank-scandal-part-of-lazio-fans-dark-past/
What is the issue in this case? Simply that the authorities don't do anything about it: the hate law in the UK is advanced and reliable, in Italy we are discussing increasing the penalties towards those who offend LGBT members for the fact they are gay but the parties lead by Meloni, Salvini and Renzi are doing everything in their power to avoid the decree being approved by the parliament. If the law would be stricter, you'll see that even Italy would become an easier place for a black guy to play football.
All of this being said, I could add a lot more but I would like to close up this post with saying that even though my wife is black, she never fell victim of a racist episode in Italy, Germany or the UK.
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The single act was racist and I said her act was racist. Am I wrong, was her act not racist? And I'm always very careful to say that the act was racist, not the person.
Great post mate.
shes not 12 she's an adult an should know better!
so griezmann just tried to fit in with his black colleagues? how is it any different?
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I saw this and laughed at the absurdityIt was this
nearly all Italians I met in London were open minded nice people but yes this article suggests its not a big deal
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...of-italians-in-poll-say-racism-is-justifiable
great post mate. My Cousin is half British Jamaican and half Italian and lives in Veneto with my aunt and hasn't experienced a single racist incident but I appreciate you being open about the attitudes
I am dumbfounded at that tweet. I can live with racist humour if it's actually funny.
I hope you meant to type race based humour.
Mike Maignan (keeper for Milan) was the victim of racist abuse against Juventus on sunday. Italian fans, again. Must be sad for all the non-racist fans to be put in the same bag but still, the issue is very serious in Italy, in almost every arena :
His message :
His message :
Looks like it’s been removed.
Maignan's tweet? I don't think so, i've just checked.
Didn't even make the news in italy 
Didn't even make the news in italy
Ridiculous... espcially since Juventus filed a complaint to find out who did that (their own fans). Tells you volume about where the italian media stand though.
Racist identified. Now we see what happens
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58896073
Swedish FA have said that Elanga was subjected to a racist comment by an Italy player in their U21 match yesterday
Swedish FA have said that Elanga was subjected to a racist comment by an Italy player in their U21 match yesterday
As an East-Asian guy...
I think the focus on racism is too strong (especially in US and UK).
We look differently and sometimes people point it out, or make a joke... not a huge deal.
I think the focus on racism is too strong (especially in US and UK).
We look differently and sometimes people point it out, or make a joke... not a huge deal.
I agree, we’re allowed to vote, and restaurants are no longer segregated, what more do people want?
People have to just relax a bit.
This girl from Juventus made a joke, we can find it tasteful or distasteful. And go on with life.
I have super slanted eyes. Even my family members and others Asians mock me for it in the same way as she did. Is that racism now?
I try to go to Italy every year to eat and I'm always struck at how nearly all the black people I see around are either street performers/vendors or homeless.
It’s your prerogative to feel however you want about so called jokes, just like others are entitled to take offence. People often disguise their true thoughts behind ‘banter’, and behind closed doors you may be given the benefit of the doubt by those who know you personally, but if you’re expressing these thoughts in a public domain, you’re opening yourself up to criticism from the communities your jokes are aimed at.
Given the increase in racial abuse of footballers in football stadiums and social media in recent years, I really can’t wrap my head around someone saying that the focus on racism is too much in this country. You said in the OP that ‘We look differently and sometimes people point it out’. Look different to who? White features aren’t the default, so why should this be a source of humour? Black footballers are regularly subjected to monkey chants on the basis of their appearance, I suppose you think that’s acceptable?
How do you view it?
Yep. Focusing on racism, what's that all about? We should all just chill a bit. It's not a huge deal.
Racist.
Give this guy full posting rights.
That's your personal view though. That's fine of course - no-one asks you to be offended, and if you're good with whatever people in your social circle are saying, then more power to you.
But overall, a lot of people do feel uncomfortable or get offended by disparaging comments based on race and appearances. Plus underlying those comments are often real feelings of superiority/inferiority - they're not just laughing at something, they feel there really is an issue of some sort (even if unconsciously). And that has real-word consequences, such as (unconscious) discrimination when hiring staff - for which there is plenty of evidence. And that's just one example. Also, if someone mocks you in public (in public being the key thing here; we're not in a private setting) because of your eyes, then even if you don't feel insulted, other people with similar eyes might.
So that's why it's good to call out people that are being racist, or otherwise discriminate on the basis of appearance, gender, ability, and so on. People can still make jokes, of course, but mocking people based on things they are simply born with should not be acceptable. (That statement can probably be qualified in some ways, or may need to be expanded, but I have to get back to work.
)