For my Indian friends who do not understand the Suarez story, I’ll try to explain it to you as best as I can.
Let’s see the agreeable points-
1. Suarez and Evra were NOT having a friendly conversation
2. Suarez called Evra a ‘negrito’ or a ‘negro’
3. They were having the conversation in Spanish.
4. Evra initiated the conversation, and that too in Spanish.
With me? Let’s look ahead and use an example-
Let us say you and me are in India and we are rivaling each other in a game of football or some other sport. For the purpose of the analogy, let us also assume that you are darker in color than I am. During the game, we get charged up and I call you
1. a ‘kaalu’ (Blacky) or ‘kya sale!’ (What the Fuck!) or whatever else. Friendly? Definitely not. Racist? Again, definitely not.
2. I may call you something like ‘teri behan ki..’ (Your sister’s…) and would that be racist? Again no. Offensive? Of course yes.
3. Assume you are from Bengal or Orissa or Bihar and I also call you something like ‘Sale Bihari Bhaiya’ or ‘Bengali’ or ‘Oriya’. Racist? May be not to the T but regionalist, yeah.
4. Also assume I say ‘maarunga!’(I’ll punch you!). Would that be intimidating in the field of sport? Yes. Acceptable? No.
Keep everything else same except where we are playing that sport. Instead of that being in India, it is now in England. Would you take racist offense to any of the first category of remarks or still only the third one? Neither my intent or my language changed because of where we are playing nor would your sensitivities suddenly change because you are in a different country. Probably only the fourth remark is region independent and would only depend on the tone of the delivery. Since the setting is that we are in a charged up environment, it’s safe to assume that the fourth one wasn’t delivered amicably. You can substitute ‘you’ and ‘me’ with the protagonists aptly, I think.
Since you are from India, you will also understand that we do not think of color of skin as racist. On the other hand, things like religion, region and caste are grounds for discrimination. Similarly, Suarez comes from a place where color of skin is only a descriptive subject, not a discriminatory one.
Although I might risk losing you, I’ll stretch the analogy further. Let’s say an English speaking foreigner comes to India and wants to locate someone to get his shoes mended. If you’re a cobbler and he comes to you and addresses you ‘Hey, Cobbler..’, is he alright or would you simply translate his ‘Cobbler’ to ‘chamaar’ in Hindi and take offense? Neither was the word he used in his language offensive nor was his intent. Only the translation may sound offensive and only to you since from where he is, it makes no difference.
Capisce?
