Edinson Cavani gets three match ban for not being racist

BaZ87 said:
There seems to be some confusion in here in regards to what he said. He didn't simply say the word black, what he said translates to 'little blackie' and is often used in South America to describe both black people and white people with dark features.

It's something that is accepted as non offensive in South America so does that make it ok or are some of these South American countries just behind the times, in the same way 30+ years ago it was acceptable to refer to a corner shop over here in a particular way - a term that all non racists would now accept was wrong.

I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable if I heard somebody refer to a white person with dark featuresas 'little blackie'. At best it's ignorant, at worst they could harbour genuinely offensive beliefs.

What isn't surprising is that the ignorance is no excuse phrase that was thrown about by Utd supporters some years ago no longer applies today.
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And herein lies the problem. Context.

The shortened Pakistani was turned into a negative by racists who either wanted corner shops run by white English people, or simply thought that Pakistanis' only role in the country was to run corner shops and nothing else. Hence the word became offensive in our culture.

As I understand it, 'mi negrito' isn't just non-offensive, it's a term of affection. It is said with love. It is said to their children, ffs. How is that racist? It could be argued it's racially insensitive to say it in our culture, but is that really worthy of dragging an innocent man's name through the mud, banning him for three games, fining him a 100 grand (!!) and forcing him to take a racism course? (Oh, and dragging Uruguayans through the mud too, as apparently they aren't allowed to affectionally refer to their own racial qualities).

The thing with racism is context. Always context. Once you understand that, you'll learn to love language, not live in fear, and (for Liverpool fans) understand why this is different to the Suarez/Evra case. We cannot live in a world without understanding context, it's ignorant and lazy, and only empowers those who use words as weapons.
 
Tribalism in football is one of many problems when discussing what racism is and isn't.

And it's a stupid rule, one that needs to change as you cannot ignore context. Any word or phrase can be used in a negative way, no one would argue Cavani meant it in a negative way unless football tribalism kicked in. As the title says, "Edinson Cavani gets a three match ban for not being racist". You cannot defend this and the beer on the beach example is completely different as that is illegal in their country, where as it is not illegal to say 'mi negrito' in the UK. (and btw, the UAE laws are completely ridiculous)

The FA have done some stupid **** in the past*, but this one is on a whole new level of incompetence. Farcical.

*Examples, Wayne Hennessey no charge for nazi salute https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47946382 , Jack Grealish an 80k fine (20k less than innocent Cavani) for drink driving https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-55324929

And on a footballing note, I'll never forget this gem, Rooney and Scholes get sent off in a friendly. The FA decide they have to serve three match bans in the PL https://www.theguardian.com/football/2006/aug/16/newsstory.sport2 or Rio's eight(!) month ban for a missed drugs test http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/3333091.stm
 
Apparently the Uruguayan government has condemned the FA for this ruling. The FA's bigotry/incompetence is literally causing an international incident :D
 
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