Racism incident in PSG v Istanbul match

Zlatan 7 said:
Ok, fair enough and thanks for your explanation of it, I can see that and it’s understandable.

I’m at the point where yes I can see a descriptor may cause offence because of the past use of the word, but at the same time it’s pretty much a fact that our eyes see and would use to identify someone.
im sure I’ve seen people of colour mock others who say they don’t see colour so it’s just pretty confusing and we’re heading to a place where it’s better to just keep your mouth shut and not converse.

I don’t know so I’ll stay out of it
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No worries.

I think though that most people don't expect such descriptors to disappear completely. If I got burgled for instance and saw the offender, I would of course explain the guy in every detail to the police, including his racial origin. If I was doing a population census, then yes, I'd ask for ethnicity/ colour. In my job, I would want to know about ethnicity because it can affect the types of diseases people can get (a white person generally isn't going to get sickle cell for instance) and sometimes the treatments we offer too (white and black people have different responses to things as simple and common as high blood pressure meds for instance). It has its places. Some people may even do it with friends and their friends may be OK with it. And that's OK too.

My own personal opinion on things like this has always been (and I appreciate this Romanian official may not have had the opportunity to deescalate) is to try to avoid things which can cause offense, especially if it comes at literally no cost to me at all. If I say or do something which is inadvertently offensive around a particular group and am told about it, I'll avoid it later. Its really not as hard as people make it out to be.

My experience of people who claim they don't see colour is that they're often using that as a cover to try to get away from the semi-offensive/quasi-racist comment they've just made.
 
And whichever idiot made the Romanian comment needs to be severely punished as well.
 
People who think it's totally fine referring to white but not black are the ones who are racist. Just quit your "historical negative connotations" bullshit. If we are always supposed to consider historical events we are getting nowhere. All people in all times have been treated miserably. All people in all times did horrible things such as having slaves. The thing is, Western countries were the first to stop them willingly and out of a solely moral standpoint, while slavery continued way longer in other parts of the world like the Arab world for instance. So all this BS that white people should be ashamed of the history applies as much to every other people on earth too. This whole discussion is a dead end.

Martin Luther King were convinced in the 1960s that we should stop the identity politics BS and start treating everyone equal. Nothing more, nothing less. Now 60 years later it has all gone upside-down. MLK would be considered a racist Uncle Tom by todays woke left. That says it all.

That Romanian referee did nothing wrong. If there's a group of only white players and one black player it's nothing wrong referring to him as the black one if he does not know his name. Everyone take notice on other people's physical attributes all the time. Skin color, hair color, clothing, tattoos etc. And the same goes the other way around: If I play in a team with only black players I would not care if an assistant referee would say "yellow card on the white player in away team" about me. That would be most rational thing for him if both referees don't know my name. I not being offended by that is not because I as a white person "lack negative historical connotations", it is me not being a fecking wimp.

Racism is a horrible thing. This is not racism at all.
 
This thread is going in circles. We know the word isn’t bad. You’re not the first to point this out 20 pages in to the thread
 
Whether it was 'meant' in a racist way or not, as a person you should have the respect and common general knowledge to realise what you are about to say can be used as a racial insult. Ie....Don't say it.

Racism is a world wide issue, so to say 'but thats not what it means in his country' is a ridiculous defence, where has he been living for the past 10 years? Under a rock?
 
not racist for me, more a break down in communication. a player was to be sent off, the 4th official said the black one in romanian, which sounds similar to an offensive word, which i can understand the coach taking offence to but should have been sorted there and then and the game finished,
 
Murray3007 said:
not racist for me, more a break down in communication. a player was to be sent off, the 4th official said the black one in romanian, which sounds similar to an offensive word, which i can understand the coach taking offence to but should have been sorted there and then and the game finished,
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Yup. There have been loads of actual blatantly racist incidents over the past few years when players would have been quite entitled to refuse to finish the game. Why they chose this time to make such a stand is baffling.
 
I'm interested to see if as much noise will be made about the 'gypsy' comments. So far the only place I've seen it mentioned is here.
 
Not even close to been racist. Its the exact same as cavani situation. People speaking their native tongue and because a word sounds like a derogatory term in English suddenly its racist.

The 4th official should keep his job and it should be put to bed and forgot about.
 
DCP said:
Whether it was 'meant' in a racist way or not, as a person you should have the respect and common general knowledge to realise what you are about to say can be used as a racial insult. Ie....Don't say it.

Racism is a world wide issue, so to say 'but thats not what it means in his country' is a ridiculous defence, where has he been living for the past 10 years? Under a rock?
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That is an extremely English-centric way of looking at the world. Negru means black in Romanian. Black. The. Color. Black. In Spanish it's negro. In Italian it's nero and in French noir. What you are saying is that people in all these countries should not be allowed to say "black" in their own language, because it could potentially offend someone who speaks a different language. Just stupid.

Stop being ignorant and deal with it. There are lots of words that have different meaning in other languages and there will always be. My home town in Sweden means "dick" in hindi. Should I perhaps take that into consideration when I travel to India and someone ask me where I come from? Sweden should perhaps change the name of my town to not upset Indians?

No. This should've been solved yesterday at the pitch and the referee should be brought back into referring and given a big excuse.
 
Moonwalker said:
He is talking about a specific word and its 'relatives'. The English phonetic relative of the word 'negru' would be a word that's mainly not used to describe objects, which clearly isn't the case with the word's semantic relative 'black'. Clearly he is talking about not using the word at all. You don't have to read Truth and Method to figure that out.
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Sorry, but I think you're wrong. We're not going to agree so its a waste of both of our time going backward and forward on this.
 
dannyrhinos89 said:
Not even close to been racist. Its the exact same as cavani situation. People speaking their native tongue and because a word sounds like a derogatory term in English suddenly its racist.

The 4th official should keep his job and it should be put to bed and forgot about.
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That's not what this is about.
 
Im very much in the "not racist" camp on this one. I do not think that describing someone by their skin colour - or any other physical characteristic - should be considered offensive or racist. Effectively, by saying that one should not refer to a black person as black, you are implying that "black" is an offensive or derogatory term, or that it is something the person should be ashamed of or wouldnt want to hear. I do not believe this is or should be the case.

Secondly, on the point of people having a right to be offended by things. This is true, everyone has the right to be offended by whatever they like. However just because you are offended doesnt mean you are right. If I take offense at someone saying "hi" to me, then that doesnt automatically mean that word should be censored. Similarly, I do not believe that referring to someone by their skin colour is "reducing their identity to their colour" or any such arguments. It is simply a descriptive term - others may be available, but depending on the context, skin colour may simply be the most appropriate to use (as I believe was the case in this incident). Using black as a description in this way does not preclude the individual from having plenty of other characteristics and takes nothing away from their identity, it is simply one part of it.

Racism is vile and has no place in society. I define racism as the existence of prejudice or discrimination for or against people of a specific race. That has not happened here from what I can tell. There was no discrimination, no difference of treatment. Hell, the decision by the referee had already been made before he knew the identity of the "perpetrator".

Finally, if you introduce double standards - for whatever reason - in whether its ok to refer to a white person as white, vs a black person as black, you are on to a losing proposition. At some point you have to put the past in the past. None of the current generation were responsible for slavery, or events from hundreds of years ago, and similarly none of the current generation are direct victims of it. Racism absolutely still exists and needs to be stamped out, but constantly treading on egg shells due to the crimes of our ancestors is not the way to do it, for me.
 
Its not hard, just don't refer to people by their skin color. They have names, they have position titles, etc. There was a lot of different nationalities on the Istanbul bench, multiple black players and coaches. There are times when you describe people and its important, there are other times when a simple name or title will do. I've got no sympathy for him.
 
Berbaclass said:
I'm interested to see if as much noise will be made about the 'gypsy' comments. So far the only place I've seen it mentioned is here.
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It hasn't been picked up anywhere, from what I can tell apart from a couple of journalists on twitter. That guy should be reprimanded, though ironically he could also claim that in his country that word isn't offensive at all.
 
WeePat said:
It hasn't been picked up anywhere, from what I can tell apart from a couple of journalists on twitter. That guy should be reprimanded, though ironically he could also claim that in his country that word isn't offensive at all.
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Who was it Borat?
 
evil_geko said:
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Surely the officials would've reported this to Uefa when it all kicked off yesterday?
If it's true it will be in the official report on the incident. I hate single source stories, it's impossible to know what weight to place on this unless it's confirmed.
 
I'm not quite sure who the designated authourities on this are, but if we could please ask them for a list of words that are in absolutely no context or language to be used, that'd be great. Until then, this is a farce, with more fuss being made about using a descriptive word in a foreign language to describe something than you know, the lack of black managers, discrepencies in minority wages and even impact of covid on minorities. Those are hard to deal with, so lets focus on this.

Reminds me of that professor in the states that got fired for literally correctly using a mandarin term - in a f*cking communications class - because in English it resembles the n-word.

For me the people that actually care about institutional racism are focussed on how to change systemic issues. Those who like to appear to be woke are focussed on things like this.

Is Demba Ba within his rights to offended hearing a word he believes to be offensive? Yes. Is the Romanian official within his rights to use his own f*cking language correctly? Yes. Could we all be adults and just sort this out? Apparently not.
 
Jippy said:
Surely the officials would've reported this to Uefa when it all kicked off yesterday?
If it's true it will be in the official report on the incident. I hate single source stories, it's impossible to know what weight to place on this unless it's confirmed.
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There was a video of it in here
 
The new allegations being made about 'gypsy' being used by Webo (may be false of course) the semantic arguments about languages most people don't even speak, the sheer volume of false equivalences, speculation and misinformation is why that this rush to indignation and righteousness is what so often rubs people up the wrong way.

To keep a calm head and not rush to either defence or condemnation is not akin to racism or being 'complicit' in its occurrence. Some people like to breathe and allow dust to settle before racing headlong into arguments.

Social media has a huge amount to answer for but so do individuals. Stop weighing in heavily on things you don't know anything about. Balanced discussion about topical events, sure,go for it. But show some humility in what you're talking about for God's sake, in this thread alone there's insinuations being made about other posters etc. It's a toxic mess of righteousness and ego.
 
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Walrus said:
Im very much in the "not racist" camp on this one. I do not think that describing someone by their skin colour - or any other physical characteristic - should be considered offensive or racist. Effectively, by saying that one should not refer to a black person as black, you are implying that "black" is an offensive or derogatory term, or that it is something the person should be ashamed of or wouldnt want to hear. I do not believe this is or should be the case.

Secondly, on the point of people having a right to be offended by things. This is true, everyone has the right to be offended by whatever they like. However just because you are offended doesnt mean you are right. If I take offense at someone saying "hi" to me, then that doesnt automatically mean that word should be censored. Similarly, I do not believe that referring to someone by their skin colour is "reducing their identity to their colour" or any such arguments. It is simply a descriptive term - others may be available, but depending on the context, skin colour may simply be the most appropriate to use (as I believe was the case in this incident). Using black as a description in this way does not preclude the individual from having plenty of other characteristics and takes nothing away from their identity, it is simply one part of it.

Racism is vile and has no place in society. I define racism as the existence of prejudice or discrimination for or against people of a specific race. That has not happened here from what I can tell. There was no discrimination, no difference of treatment. Hell, the decision by the referee had already been made before he knew the identity of the "perpetrator".

Finally, if you introduce double standards - for whatever reason - in whether its ok to refer to a white person as white, vs a black person as black, you are on to a losing proposition. At some point you have to put the past in the past. None of the current generation were responsible for slavery, or events from hundreds of years ago, and similarly none of the current generation are direct victims of it. Racism absolutely still exists and needs to be stamped out, but constantly treading on egg shells due to the crimes of our ancestors is not the way to do it, for me.
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If you forget the past you will just repeat the same mistakes. Saying that we should just forget about the years of oppression and slavery that still have a huge impact on todays society is not just dangerous but hugely disrespectful to the generations of people who have fought, died, marched, been attacked and suffered for us to get here. This just forget sentiment for me is just totally disrespectful.
 
This is getting tiring.

The definitions of words exist so that we can all understand the meaning of a word with clarity.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=definition+of+rascism

Those who choose not to understand that (definition of words) are the ones who are causing these issues.

Its very clear within the context of this event that what was said does not fall under the definition of the word "racism".

Its also clear something was heard and a huge over-reaction took place (as with many things) leading to the teams leaving the field.

Both teams should be punished for this.

They should not be above the law!
 
Ah cheers, hadn't seen that. Doesn't sound great. Can they really pinpoint who actually said that, given the talking is off camera?
 
This is inexcusable. PSG should be docked 3 points for not hitting the official.
 
Jippy said:
Ah cheers, hadn't seen that. Doesn't sound great. Can they really pinpoint who actually said that, given the talking is off camera?
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Obviously they will have to investigate to determine who said it but it certainly sounds like he's using the phrase with a negative connotation.
 
mancan92 said:
If you forget the past you will just repeat the same mistakes. Saying that we should just forget about the years of oppression and slavery that still have a huge impact on todays society is not just dangerous but hugely disrespectful to the generations of people who have fought, died, marched, been attacked and suffered for us to get here. This just forget sentiment for me is just totally disrespectful.
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what?
 
africanspur said:
No worries.

I think though that most people don't expect such descriptors to disappear completely. If I got burgled for instance and saw the offender, I would of course explain the guy in every detail to the police, including his racial origin. If I was doing a population census, then yes, I'd ask for ethnicity/ colour. In my job, I would want to know about ethnicity because it can affect the types of diseases people can get (a white person generally isn't going to get sickle cell for instance) and sometimes the treatments we offer too (white and black people have different responses to things as simple and common as high blood pressure meds for instance). It has its places. Some people may even do it with friends and their friends may be OK with it. And that's OK too.

My own personal opinion on things like this has always been (and I appreciate this Romanian official may not have had the opportunity to deescalate) is to try to avoid things which can cause offense, especially if it comes at literally no cost to me at all. If I say or do something which is inadvertently offensive around a particular group and am told about it, I'll avoid it later. Its really not as hard as people make it out to be.

My experience of people who claim they don't see colour is that they're often using that as a cover to try to get away from the semi-offensive/quasi-racist comment they've just made.
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Agree with all that too mate, it seems too obvious that just being civil and thoughtful of each other could fix so many issues
 
mancan92 said:
If you forget the past you will just repeat the same mistakes. Saying that we should just forget about the years of oppression and slavery that still have a huge impact on todays society is not just dangerous but hugely disrespectful to the generations of people who have fought, died, marched, been attacked and suffered for us to get here. This just forget sentiment for me is just totally disrespectful.
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You are twisting my words. I was not suggesting that we refuse to acknowledge the terrible crimes committed by our ancestors, and there is certainly a valid point in making sure mistakes are not repeated. However it is another thing entirely to be held hostage to things that took place hundreds of years ago. I am referring to the oft-seen argument that "Its different for xyz because of [historical context]".
 
mancan92 said:
I did I just explained it in the form of a question with a very clear and obvious answer. You know the answer to the question I asked so from there you know what has been explained.
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Why can’t you just be civil and converse in a way that’s not a word soup. My last post to you anyway
 
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