Fortaleza

This whole thing has made me furious - but not for the reasons some of you may suspect. Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long rant! Switch off now if you don't want to get bored!!!

There was never ANY racial hatred intent here - hatred, yes, racial no. On the UK side, the perception of last year's F1 season greatly differs to that of what the Spanish perception is. The Spanish feel Alonso was treated shabbily - and not for the No 1 status in team as the UK press believe it was all about. For this reason, they hate Ron Dennis, MacLaren and Hamilton. Pure and simple.

If Hamilton had been white with shocking red hair, they'd have been calling him the ginger bar steward no doubt dressed up in ginger wigs; if he was bald, they'd have called hom a bald, slaphead bar steward. Following the UK media frenzy's argument, does this mean that these Spanish people despise all red heads or all bald people????? Of course not. The only consistent here - be he ginger, bald or even, dare one say, black - is that they think he's a bar steward. That he's black is irrelevant to the message they are getting across and the only racism on show is what the media have told us is racism.
The racism in this case is in the eyes of the media nowhere else. Look at the timeline. This happened on Friday, broke in one of the Spanish sport dailys on Saturday and it was not until Sunday that the UK TV news (usually ahead of the papers) picked up on the story, putting their own spin on it so that by Monday night it was the lead story on Sky News (the Breaking News channel, FFS!!!). Had Marca not run the story on Saturday, would the story have been overblown in this way? I doubt it.

Mitzyboy refers to the football, yet once again this is a case of UK press taking things way out of context and taking from the story only what they want to believe. Just a few weeks before the incident of which MB talks (monkey chants at Spain v England friendly in Madrid), the Spanish as a nation were ripped to shreds by the UK press as a backward nation of racist animals where racism is so institutionalised that it is considered the norm. What a load of bollox! The press had jumped on things that were said during a Spanish training session.

Reyes, the young star of the future, was playing at Arsenal at the time,was still young (still is!) but couldn't command a regular place because of a certain Thierry Henry in the team (who happens to be black). Luis Aragones in a Spain training session needed to motivate Reyes whose confidence was not high. He was trying to say to him: "You are not at Arsenal now, you're here. You're the star. It's your position. You're better than him, do you understand me? You are better than that black guy. Forget that black SOB, you are better than him." Was Aragones being racist? Is Aragones deriding the black race or a player who is black? He didn't want to use the player's name as it was a way of showing Reyes that here in Spain they only look at Reyes and don't even know who the other guy is (of course they do, but this was supposed to be motivating). As before, if he'd been long haired, fat, short or whatever then THAT would have been the adjective used. If it had been Peter Crouch, I'm sure Aragones would have said 'that lanky SOB' and the incident would never have been heard of.

The UK press went wild, demanded angry reactions from whoever they could muster up, got the FA involved, UEFA, the Pope etc....
Quite rightly, Aragones stuck to his guns and refused to apologise for being racist as he insisted he had not been. He eventually offered a qualified apology to diffuse the situation but that was as far as it went.

The next game to be played after the incident was the England friendly.The story was dragged up and suddenly for a crappy friendly there was a load of press attention with more Spain is Institutionally Racist jibes. The England team didn't help to diffuse the situation - quite the opposite in fact as the day before the game they did a kick around at the Bernabau before the camaras wearing "Stamp racism out of football" T-shirts. Red rag to a bull.

Many of you should know enough about Spain now to know that when the Spanish feel under attack or pushed into a corner, they come out fighting as one as they are a very proud nation. During the game it was not just a group of the hooligan element making the monkey noises - there were many others doing it as well. Were they showing that they are a bunch of racists that hate all black people? Or was it something more? In previous and following games, this did not happen when black people were playing, so why did it only happen when the English team came to town?

You could point to the Samuel Etoo case as evidence of football racism. In a game where there were at least four others of black or mixed colour, why was it only Etoo who was goaded? Because Madrid fans believe him to be a traitor.

Look at the Ron Atkinson incident supposedly off camera a few years back. That WAS racism. That was about the player being black.

I'm Welsh. I get called all sorts, usually in jest. But if someone calls me a Welsh Bar steward in an aggressive way, is he insulting me because I'm Welsh or because he just hates me?

There's a hell of a lot of passive racism that manifests itself on here - comments like 'this is Spain', 'you know what the Spanish are like' etc are clearly not intended in any racist way, but the generalisation and implied superiority are clear examples of racism, albeit passive.

How far do you take it?

Rant over!!!

jdr

How did a Welshman get all those words to fit together ?

Mitzyboy

Fortaleza

You are seriously telling me that "blacking up" and wearing T shirts marked "The Hamilton Family" is not a racist stance ....

I cant find what the actual chants were

Fortaleza

During Carnaval??? When the idea of each group is to have a topical and/or satirical theme???? Whilst on one side saying 'Hamilton Family' apparently supporting Alonso as it says Alonso No 1 on the back???

My point still stands - had Hamilton been a red haired, white guy, then they would have dressed up presumably with same slogan but this time with ginger wigs.

Would the Ginger haired people the world over scream foul because it is an affront to all ginger haired people everywhere? Of course not and it would have been lucky to make the quirky 'and finally' spot on the news. Hamilton is reviled here because he is Hamilton not because he is black.

Mitzyboy

In this day and age when even a golliwog isn't allowed on a Jar of Jam anyone who does such a thing is totally niave, stupid, or surely must have realised what the consequences would be.

I'm no PC freak, but carnival or no carnival this was a pointed and calculated racial taunt. I take your point, if the Ginger of this world united and claimed racism it just wouldn't have the same impact, but Black and White is something that always evokes high emotion and the actions in Barcelona were only going to have one outcome.

The football? Why then would Spanish supporters do ape impressions towards the black players, applying your logic as above?

Fortaleza

If you believe they went out there with a calculated plan to make a racial statement then I'm afraid you are simply wrong - it was aimed just at Hamilton.

My point about the football, as I illustrated above, is that week in week out the fans don't do this. After UK media hype decided to brand all Spaniards racists, people during that game decided to give the press what they were looking for - especially as some even went looking for the microphones (allegedly). However in other games where black players were involved nothing happened. If your are racist then you are racist. You don't just turn it on when you like then cheer black players like heroes on another day.

UK press should stick to affairs in its own backyard before blithely attacking another country and using their own 'morals' and 'standards' to judge them without bothering to find out what's behind it. There's far more sinister racism in the UK than a group of proud Spaniards lampooning a rival of their hero, who they blame for him having a bad year.

bil

Actually, the gingers are starting to take grave exception to it all.

Fortaleza

bil

One of my nicest customers happens to be Welsh, gay and ginger. Oh yes, and I think he's a vicar too.

Lovely guy tho.

Mitzyboy

Yes of course it was just aimed at Hamilton, but he's black!!!!!
If they simply wanted to demonstrate against Hamilton then why not just hold up banners illustrating that they didnt like him? Or wear T shirts with "Hamilton is crap" or something like that? Thats their perogative, and acceptable, but to "black up", thats taking into a different dimension imho

Fortaleza

Thank God Lewis Hamilton is not a gay, Welsh, ginger Vicar!!!! Could have been a real scandal had the naughty Spanish taunted him over THAT!

Mitzyboy

Oh ..... I agree, just to say all Spanish are racists because of the football and this, is completely stupid and of course typical of the British press

Fortaleza

So because he's black we mustn't say anything? Isn't that racism by the back door?? Wasn't all that positive discrimination abandoned as it was deemed still to be discriminatory????

bil

Some of this is too precious for words. Mustn't say negro, black, coloured, WTF. I once actually heard some pc nerk use the term 'non reflective'. Can you imagine that? I tried it out on a coloured friend, and his comment was, he'd rather be called a n*gg*r.

Mind you, he is a REAL racist.

rugbymatt

OK, who the hell wrote that for you?