There have been so many articles on the Suarez/Evra incident that I thought I'd join in.
As none of us know what was exactly said we can only go with what Suarez has claimed in the Uruguayan press. Apparently he used the word 'negrito' towards Evra. There have been thousands of different posts on here about the potential connotations of what Suarez exactly meant with it.
'Negrito' - is the Spanish diminutive of negro, i.e. "little black person", referring to their small stature, and was coined by early European explorers.
Because the definition of the word contains the word 'black' Suarez has been immediately hung, drawn and quartered for using racist language towards Evra.
I'm sure a lot of us on here have at one time or another played the a game of football. We all know the banter and to an extent the abuse that takes place between players of opposite teams. Where Suarez comes from (and in numerous other countries) 'negrito' is used commonly to refer to predominantly black people and is a reference to their small stature (not their skin colour). It is a word most of us wouldn't encounter too often where we live so to try and give it an English interpretation/context would be foolish.
With Patrice Evra differing 3 odd inches in height with Suarez could it not be that Suarez was honestly using the term 'negrito' to wind Evra up in the context of "You're easy, negrito" in the same sense that 2 English players may wind each other up by saying "You're easy, you wee effer?"
By this I mean that Suarez was maybe only winding Evra up in the 'wee man' sense and was in no way, shape or form referring to his skin colour?
The Negrito-Gate Scandal...................
posted on 19/11/11
The alternative is that its ok to taunt someone with the colour of their skin as long as its in a foreign language and you can say "we all do it where I come from"
who are we to condemn monkey noises from spanish fans in spain, eh?
I suspect that the fact that its suarez is clouding the thinking of the apologist camp, as lfc fans are generally a fair minded bunch.
posted on 19/11/11
I should have said liverpudlians, not lfc fans.
posted on 19/11/11
comment by The Post Nearly Man (U1270)
posted 7 minutes ago
The alternative is that its ok to taunt someone with the colour of their skin as long as its in a foreign language and you can say "we all do it where I come from"
who are we to condemn monkey noises from spanish fans in spain, eh?
I suspect that the fact that its suarez is clouding the thinking of the apologist camp, as lfc fans are generally a fair minded bunch.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Or we could accept that just because somebody uses a different language than our saintly one, that they shouldn't be punished for using a word, just because it sounds similar to one which we deem racist.
posted on 19/11/11
We could even ban foreign languages altogether.
posted on 19/11/11
Except uruguayan
posted on 19/11/11
TPNM
It's obvious that you cannot see, or don't want to see, there is a cultural issue here, an issue that clearly needs addressing for the good of the game.
You keep spouting the same mantra, do you really think that the FA will just accept this as being ok (or not ok) without attempting to clarify the issue and therefore enable everybody to understand what is/is not allowed?
You seem an intelligent enough poster to me to be able to understand the problem here, yet your posts seem to contradict that assumption.
posted on 19/11/11
comment by BillyBobTaunton (U4886)
Intelligence isn't the problem here. When you are unwilling to understand viewpoints from other people, then you block out what they say and continue with your inane ramblings. This is what's happening here.
posted on 19/11/11
BB, i've never claimed intelligence. I do claim a strong opinion on this. If this counts as mantra, so be it. If the fact that it doesn't chime with the collective opinion of a group on here makes it inane ramblings, well i'll live with that too.
Enjoy the game tomorrow.
posted on 19/11/11
Why not if its as innocuous as is being made out and carries no reference to skin colour?
---------------------------
I haven't once said that the word negrito is innocuous. I have said that there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding its usage. That is not the same thing. If non-black players use it to refer to other non-black players then it can't be deemed to be exclusively related to skin colour. Therefore the only person who can definitively confirm whether Suarez used it in a colour related context is Suarez himself. Everyone can have an opinion, for the record my opinion is that he was probably aware of the cultural ambiguity and thought he could exploit it to get a sly dig in at Evra's skin colour. But my opinion is no more valid than anyone else's.
As BBT says, whether the word negrito was used or not this whole issue has highlighted the fact that it's meaning is highly ambiguous and this would be a good time to clarify the terms of its usage.
posted on 19/11/11
who are we to condemn monkey noises from spanish fans in spain, eh?
---------------
If you can explain the cultural ambiguities surrounding monkey noises you might convince me that this is acceptable, but I very much doubt it.