Just How Racist is Europe

[RedRaptor]

Educate me as a Canadian. What's the history to all the racism that exists in Europe. Not to say it doesn't exist here, because it does.

From the article below, I can't believe how bad it is in Poland and Ukraine.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156303/Euro-2012-Polish-thugs-hurl-racist-abuse-monkey-chants-Holland-stars-Krakow.html?ITO=1490

So what's the story? Too many immigrants?

[XTOTHEL]

I think a mix of culture, football fans being crazy to start with, and racism makes this worse and more prominent.

[Marta]

okay wow. Just saw this.
Pretty disappointed. I was recently in Poland myself and witnessed the entire country preparing for this huge event.
That being said, yes there is racism in Poland. That could be simply because of a lack of cultural diversity, which could ofcourse be perpetuated by the racism.
As a second world, very Catholic and very conservative nation, there is no doubt that cultural exclusivity takes place.
I know first thing people ask me when they find out im CANADIAN (see what I did here? LOL) is whether there are black kids in my school -_-
Thats just ignorance, yes...ofcourse there are. In Scarborough, pretty sure Im actually outnumbered.
There's also the stereotypical antisemitism (which I never understood), and we're not fond the of Germans (history...)

But the Dutch? And anglophones? WTF POLAND? Half of Poland speaks English right now and the other half has left to some other Euro countries for work...

Very dissapointed. But I mean, this happens worldwide. Even in Canada (remember the banana peel incident?)...

tisk tisk Poland. Become enlightened.

[Marta]

I think a mix of culture, football fans being crazy to start with, and racism makes this worse and more prominent.

and an unquestionable love of alcohol.
(yea, I said it)

[DTK]

From the article:

Masked thugs targeted fans speaking English and Russian


I remember being in Poland on vacation when i was about 16 and my family said something along the lines of "Make sure know no one hears you speaking English or finds out your are from Canada."

From personal experience, ive seen people of various races in Poland and they were treated no different than white poles.

I also find it confusing they were being racist towards the dark skinned athletes when in 2001, there was a dark skinned Polish player playing for our national team. Ive heard people even claim it was mainly thanks to him that Poland made the World Cup in 2001... people were on his nuts like you wouldnt believe.

[DTK]

2002 World Cup, not 2001.*

[jab]

What they did at the dutch training is nothing new to the ukrainian and polish people. Not saying all polish or ukrainian are racist but the football fans are definitely in their own category. Its disgusting to see such behaviour in such a multicultural sport. This has carried on in league games through out the season as well. No matter what team your are cheering for, even it if is the home team, if you are not of white descent you will be abused, taunted threatened and beaten. I think UEFA made a mistake picking these two countries to be hosts. Yes the country and stadiums and cities are beautiful, but this has been going on for years now, and the amount of foreign born players on teams is now increasing. It is very sad to see bananas being thrown at african born players, and myself being italian, one of our best players is of ghana background. He amongst others will be targeted as part of these hate crimes, and the worst part about it is the security does nothing about it. The link below is a video that was posted a few days ago called "stadiums of hate, part 1 and 2," just showing the kind of nonsense that happens over there. disgusting.. that is my two cents

video can be watched here : http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/bbcs-panorama-programme-euro-2012-stadiums-hate/

[mazidane]

Its worse in Spain and Italy.

Monkey chants, banana peels are a common occurrence towards black players.

I think its more ignorance than anything else.

Sad part is UEFA does fack all as if nothing happened they just turn a blind eye to it all.

Funny part is some of these countries want to lecture "lesser" nations on human rights and freedoms. Its a sad state of affairs.

[m_bisson]

I don't think this qualifies as racism.... I'd call it patriotism. Extreme patriotism.

[Marta]

What they did at the dutch training is nothing new to the ukrainian and polish people. Not saying all polish or ukrainian are racist but the football fans are definitely in their own category. Its disgusting to see such behaviour in such a multicultural sport. This has carried on in league games through out the season as well. No matter what team your are cheering for, even it if is the home team, if you are not of white descent you will be abused, taunted threatened and beaten. I think UEFA made a mistake picking these two countries to be hosts. Yes the country and stadiums and cities are beautiful, but this has been going on for years now, and the amount of foreign born players on teams is now increasing. It is very sad to see bananas being thrown at african born players, and myself being italian, one of our best players is of ghana background. He amongst others will be targeted as part of these hate crimes, and the worst part about it is the security does nothing about it. The link below is a video that was posted a few days ago called "stadiums of hate, part 1 and 2," just showing the kind of nonsense that happens over there. disgusting.. that is my two cents

video can be watched here : http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/bbcs-panorama-programme-euro-2012-stadiums-hate/

Yea, thats pretty brutal, but there is racism and intolerance in ANY COUNTRY, worldwide. Same can be said for Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands (all these countries ive personally been to and have witnessed racism). So, I dont agree with you when you say its a mistake to have them hosted in Poland and Ukraine considering this bullshit and disgusting behaviour could happen anywhere else, so to be safe should we NOT have these tournaments?

there are ingnorant ****s everywhere. and keep in mind, alot of the people at these games are NOT actually Polish or Ukrainian (considering the countries are fairly poor and most citizens cant afford tickets) but are actually tourists from OTHER countries.

[ZeroChalk]

I don't think this qualifies as racism.... I'd call it patriotism. Extreme patriotism.

uhhhh....

[Booostin]

I don't think this qualifies as racism.... I'd call it patriotism. Extreme patriotism.

Kicking black/brown people in the ass is patriotism?

I learned something new today.

[RedRaptor]

I don't think this qualifies as racism.... I'd call it patriotism. Extreme patriotism.

Insight into how a racist thinks...

I've heard all the excuses but this one tops them all.

Aren't you a cop or a cop in training?

[cSPEED]

LMAO hitler chants, antisemitism, blatant racial slurs and violence against people of color or jewish religion. Yeah, let's go with extreme patriotism.

[MarkWB]

LOL, does anyone maybe think that the fact these events allow countries to have teams SPECIFICALLY associated with their name play against each other in a competitive sport? Of COURSE there's going to be racism/nationalism. Did you honestly expect people to be civil while screaming "**** Portgual, Italy for life!" or something along those lines? We do the same thing with NHL, NBA, etc... it's just not associated with any country.

I'm not condoning throwing bananas at black players, but who's to say those same players wouldn't throw goat cheese at Indian players, or that Indian players wouldn't throw empty wine bottles at the French. Again, not condoning it, but we allow people to express a lot of national pride during these games, and when you're pitting country on country, pride on pride, someone's bound to resort to racism to get in the other teams head.

[cSPEED]

So just because there's a possibility that one culture would do it to another, it's ok for that culture to do it. Right.

There's no shame in nationalism and competitive spirit. Blatant racism however is a completely different story.

[MarkWB]

So just because there's a possibility that one culture would do it to another, it's ok for that culture to do it. Right.

There's no shame in nationalism and competitive spirit. Blatant racism however is a completely different story.

Someone obviously missed the part where I said I wasn't condoning it...twice. It's NOT ok, but I'm just wondering why people are so surprised/shocked. Again, you're mixing national pride with athletic standing, testosterone, probably alcohol...if you were expecting a civil gathering I think you've got a distorted view of the world.

[cSPEED]

So racism is expected then right? Noone said civil gathering. How come world cups have been run in almost every part of the world and from what I can remember not one other time has the racism been THIS blatant. That's what this thread is about. I'm glad you expect blatant racism from competitive world events but I don't and the reason this thread was even created was because neither do others. It doesn't need to be civil, it doesn't need to be clean, but it needs to be in a place in the world where racism is not an accepted part of the culture.

[Marta]

Insight into how a racist thinks...

I've heard all the excuses but this one tops them all.

Aren't you a cop or a cop in training?

OH MY GOD....

[Marta]

So racism is expected then right? Noone said civil gathering. How come world cups have been run in almost every part of the world and from what I can remember not one other time has the racism been THIS blatant. That's what this thread is about. I'm glad you expect blatant racism from competitive world events but I don't and the reason this thread was even created was because neither do others. It doesn't need to be civil, it doesn't need to be clean, but it needs to be in a place in the world where racism is not an accepted part of the culture.

The racism has always been THIS blatant. However, the reaction to racism has evolved to be much more sensitive (and rightfully so) to this issue. Thus, just because the racism in other countries PREVIOUS to this wasnt on the news, doesnt mean it didnt happen. It could just be a failure to report/acknowledge its significance in the past, as we have seen through the various genocides in history. If anything, the public outrage to this racism is a postive sign that things are slowly changing and the mentality of the majority is to stop such behaviour.

[cSPEED]

Sorry Marta, I know you're polish but Poland and Ukraine (I'm Russian born and raised) are extremely racist countries. I don't agree with failure to report and more awareness. The world has been intolerant to racism for far too long to use that as an excuse, sorry.

[cSPEED]

Also, please show me one video, article, anything where Hitler and antisemitism chants by the WHOLE STADIUM has been an issue.

[Marta]

Sorry Marta, I know you're polish but Poland and Ukraine (I'm Russian born and raised) are extremely racist countries. I don't agree with failure to report and more awareness. The world has been intolerant to racism for far too long to use that as an excuse, sorry.

Im not denying that they're racist countries. Like I said earlier, they are very conservative, very Catholic countries second-world nations. Im not a youtube person to find videos, but the suggestion that they are SIGNIFICANTLY MORE racist than other countries in Europe, is just absurd IMO.

[MarkWB]

So racism is expected then right? Noone said civil gathering. How come world cups have been run in almost every part of the world and from what I can remember not one other time has the racism been THIS blatant. That's what this thread is about. I'm glad you expect blatant racism from competitive world events but I don't and the reason this thread was even created was because neither do others. It doesn't need to be civil, it doesn't need to be clean, but it needs to be in a place in the world where racism is not an accepted part of the culture.

Won't happen in our life time, lol. I'm glad to see the progress, but I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment expecting sports fans not to yell racial slurs at each other during a country on country game. I hold the people of the world to a very low standard, and rarely am I surprised that they usually don't even meet the standards I set out. Why fool yourself into thinking the people of our planet are some evolved super race that's oh-so-different from our grandparents, who may have been taking part in lynchings? Like I said, it's not okay, I don't condone it, and nobody should, but when all is said and done, and this Euro cup is behind us, those racists will still be just as racist as they were before, the only difference is nobody will be talking about it anymore, so the buzz of having the "holier than thou" attitude wears off, and people go back to not caring.

It's not ok, but it's reality.

[Marta]

Also, please show me one video, article, anything where Hitler and antisemitism chants by the WHOLE STADIUM has been an issue.

if I wasnt at work and had a chance to research this, I would.
Im not disputing the disgustingess of such behaviour, nor am I trying to justify it. I specialize in hate crime and have studied heavily on such issues especially about antisemitism in its modern form. Im just saying, its absurd to say this wouldnt have happened in other countries in Europe.

And please dont minimize the fact that most SPECATATORS are not actually Polish or Ukrainian... but tourists from other nations.

[dave2010GT]

I was in Munich in May for the Champions League final and I was SHOCKED at some of the racism I was hearing from German fans and people in general.

I'm from the UK and there is still some race tension going on there but having been to Poland 8 years ago with a friend of mine from the Phillipines some of the remarks and treatment we received were un-believable.