The English Football Association handed Edison Cavani a three-match ban and fined him \u00a3100,000 for using the term \u201cGracias negrito\u201d in the social media post he had made in response to a message of congratulations after a match-winning display against Southampton in November.<\/p>\n
Apparently the term, which literally translates as \u201cThank you little black person\u201d and does not have any derogatory connotations but instead conveys a well-intended wish as a term of endearment in Cavani\u2019s home country, Uruguay.<\/p>\n
Evidently the football authorities in England are not privy to the special cultural significance latent in the term, interpreting instead it as being \u201cinsulting, abusive, improper\u201d which subsequently got the star footballer fined for racism in England despite the Uruguay and Manchester United striker having swiftly deleted the social media post and issued a hasty apology insisting he was \u201ccompletely opposed to racism\u201d the moment he was told that what he had posted could easily be misconstrued as a racial slur.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, the FA\u2019s sanction and castigation of Cavani gave rise to much incredulity in the Uruguayan\u2019s home country.<\/p>\n
\u201cTouch one Uruguayan, touch us all,\u201d Silvina Rosas grumbled as she adorned wine bottles with labels bearing the controversial phrase \u201cGracias Negrito\u201d in her wine distribution outlet, saying the news \u201coutraged\u201d her and as an act of protest, promptly designed a label with the contested phrase sprawled over a blue and white background reminiscent of the Uruguayan flag.<\/p>\n
She subsequently posted a photo montage of some of the newly-dressed wine bottles on social media and was immediately surprised by an avalanche of orders leading her to create a new line of the wine product with that special label design, and she has not stopped shipping deliveries since then.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reaction was divine madness,\u201d Rosas told AFP. \u201cPeople understood that this (the label design) was done with love. The price also represents that because there is not much profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bottles of Uruguay\u2019s flagship tannat red wine, sell for 340 pesos (about $8) apiece.<\/p>\n
Rosas\u2019s reaction is but just one example of Uruguayan indignation the FA had ignited in their ignorance of Uruguayan culture.<\/p>\n
Uruguay\u2019s Spanish language academy, among others, issued a statement in which accusing the English FA of \u201cignorance\u201d, saying it was common for the phrase, and others that may appear offensive to an outsider, to be used affectionately as a term of endearment among friends or family members.<\/p>\n
Salaciously, the Uruguayan Football Players\u2019 Association also issued their own statement that the English FA itself had been \u201cracist\u201d, while the Uruguayan Football Association (AUF) said Cavani had been the victim of a \u201cflagrant injustice\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our Spanish, which differs greatly from the Spanish spoken in other regions of the world, the nicknames negro\/a or negrito\/a are used\u2026 as an expression of friendship, affection, closeness and trust, and is in no way derogatory or discriminatory to the race or skin color\u201d of the recipient.<\/p>\n
It also highlighted that Cavani\u2019s message had been addressed to a close friend, a fellow Uruguayan, who \u201cknows and shares his way of speaking\u201d.<\/p>\n
Besides the institutional ranks closing in around Cavani to assuage the affront he suffered, individuals, too, rushed to his defense.<\/p>\n
Twitter was besieged with the hashtag #GraciasNegrito and a plane displaying a banner flew over a stretch of beach east of Uruguay\u2019s capital Montevideo in a show of support, while small businesses sensing the opportunity to make a quick buck immediately jumped on the bandwagon and started telling T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase.<\/p>\n
While most have flocked to Cavani\u2019s defence to the extent of even accusing the English FA of suffering a colonial hangover, some in the Afro-Uruguayan community say it could well be high time for a total language review.<\/p>\n
Black player Mathias Acuna, 28, believes the FA sanction was unjust and that people should be more circumspect, but he does not rule out that racism isn\u2019t a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are times that it (the word \u2018negro\u2019 or its diminutive \u2018negrito\u2019) is used affectionately, as a compliment. It depends who it is from,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a pity that it is him (Cavani), who used it affectionately\u201d who is being made an example of, said Acuna. But \u201cracism in Uruguay and in football exists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not blacks nor whites, we are people, nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to a recent report of the World Bank, Uruguay is distinctive in Latin America for being an egalitarian society with a low level of inequality, though members of its afro-descendant population are more likely to be living below the national poverty line.<\/p>\n
Martin Rorra of the Afro Youth organization is inclined to believe that the controversy should have sparked more national reflection and is worthy of critical analysis.<\/p>\n
Instead, \u201cwe refuse to see these customs as problematic or to become aware of the racism,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
The use of slurs is a common, old problem in football. It aids the discussion at this juncture to recall Cavani\u2019s compatriot Luis Suarez controversially calling Patrice Evra a \u201cnegro\u201d in an on-field argument in their incendiary Manchester United-Liverpool match, with the Uruguayan striker also insisting at the time that the word\u2019s Uruguayan use is not racially charged. Of course, in the case of hot-headed \u2018El Pistolero\u2019, one may beg to differ where his intentions then are concerned.<\/p>\n
In December, an official\u2019s use of the word \u201cnegru\u201d (Romanian for \u201cblack\u201d) caused a player walk-off in a Champions League match.<\/p>\n
Rorra opines that some of the reaction to the Cavani case, including the \u201cGracias negrito\u201d wine label, only served to trivialize an important issue instead of confronting it, a sentiment that equality activist Alicia Esquivel is in agreement with. She said she felt \u201churt\u201d that such a product could actually emerge out of the fractious incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows that people are not aware of what we are asking: It is a phrase that we must delete from our vocabulary,\u201d she told Canal 12 television.<\/p>\n
The final conclusion came from Rorra.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we really want to commit ourselves to the issue (of non-racism) we have to make some unpleasant decisions, which may lead to the rejection of elements of our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Credit: Football Tribe Malaysia<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The English Football Association handed Edison Cavani a three-match ban and fined him \u00a3100,000 for using the term \u201cGracias negrito\u201d in the social media post he had made in response to a message of congratulations after a match-winning display against Southampton in November. Apparently the term, which literally translates as \u201cThank you little black person\u201d and does not have any derogatory connotations but instead conveys a well-intended wish as a term of endearment in Cavani\u2019s home country, Uruguay. Evidently the football authorities in England are not privy to the special cultural significance latent in the term, interpreting instead it as being \u201cinsulting, abusive, improper\u201d which subsequently got the star footballer … Continue reading “Cavani\u2019s \u2018racism\u2019 ban, an attack on a culture, raises a major ruckus”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":25231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1639,1640],"tags":[1351,635,93,95],"class_list":["post-25230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-european-leagues","tag-edinson-cavani","tag-english-premier-league","tag-manchester-united","tag-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25232,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25230\/revisions\/25232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}