Nutmeg Radio

Italy is well known for its World Cup and Champions League winning sides.   But there is a dark side to Italian football that reflects developments elsewhere in Italian society.

Many football fans are familiar with Mario Balotelli’s story.  Balotelli was born in Palermo, Sicily to Ghanaian parents.  Abandoned by his birth parents, he was luckily adopted by Italian parents in Brecia at the age of two.  That would explain why Balotelli speaks Italian like a local.

If one listens to 19 year old Balotelli speak, looks at his passport (but not his picture), or studies his upbringing, it is impossible to think that he is anything other than Italian.  But his dark skin tone and distinctly African features unfortunately complicate matters. 

Without question, Mario Balotelli, a member of the Italian U21 National Team and Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan side, is one of the best young players in Italy.  In fact, Balotelli is one of the best young players in the world.  He has the presence, power, passion, and controversially, confidence of a player ten years his senior.  One would think local support for a young player of Balotelli’s stature would be resoundingly positive.  But one would be wrong.

Juventus fans have been known to chant, “A Negro cannot be Italian” and “If you jump up and down, Balotelli dies” during matches against Inter Milan.  Roma fans have thrown bananas at Balotelli at bars.  Not apples, or cupcakes, or pieces of bacon, but tellingly, bananas.

Regardless of how brash a young player might be, it is difficult to fathom a country treating one of its most talented players – who again, is only 19 years old – this way.  It makes you wonder if Balotelli would be widely revered across Italy if he looked like, say, Francisco Totti in his youth.  Totti has always had presence, passion, and confidence to spare.  In fact, these quintessentially positive Italian traits have been a trademark of top Italian footballers over the years.  Yet ironically, it’s these same traits that seemingly make Balotelli a villain to some Italians.

Let me suggest that it’s not the traits that are really the problem, but the skin color of the person who possesses them.

I’ve read various comments suggesting that the abuse of Balotelli and other black players is not racist or personal, but rather, simply a way to get under a player’s skin.  I’ve read comments equating racist comments to generic chants about players’ mothers or fathers.  But all abuse is not equal.  Racial abuse is fundamentally different than calling a player’s mother a whore or father a bastard.

For these purposes, there are two types of abuse: (1) Abuse that remains inside the stadium and is not linked to actual harm outside the stadium, and (2) Abuse that finds expression outside of the stadium and is closely related to real harm.

For the first type of abuse, it is difficult to envision verbal abuse related to players’ mothers and fathers having generic whorish or bastard-like tendencies having a real world, direct correlation to abuse or violence.  However, for the second type of abuse, it is easy to envision a correlation between the abuse of a player because of race or otherness, and a real threat of alienation, verbal abuse, and physical violence towards that person’s marginalized group elsewhere in the community.

As relatively new members of a community, minority/immigrant groups learn to live with the fear of being targeted for being different.  This sense of fear comes from witnessing things like skin color being the inspiration for racial chants in stadiums and targeted assaults outside of the stadium.  Their sense of fear is palpable and justified.  It’s not too surprising that a society that tolerates unabated, racist chanting in public places will yield active groups that feel comfortable throwing bananas at people of a different color with impunity, feel comfortable singing racist songs in stadiums without fear of repercussion, and find it acceptable to lash out against “others” in the community.

Last year in Milan, Abdul William Guibre, 19, originally from Burkina Faso, was beaten to death in Milan after a bar owner and his son accused him of stealing a pack of biscuits.  The police were not called. Instead, the bar owner and his son called Guibre a “dirty black” and then beat him with a metal pole.  A Senegalese man, also in Milan, was beaten with a baseball bat by stallholders for “stealing work from Italians.”  Ironically, he was selling fake handbags, which is one of the “industries”, along with selling pirated CDs and drugs, where the mafia regularly hires immigrants as salesmen.

These very public displays of vigilante justice, just like racist chanting at matches, are symptoms of a society struggling to find a place for the Balotellis of the world.  To be clear, the fact that these symptoms exist doesn’t mean that every person in Italy is racist.  To the contrary, Italy is full of plenty of cultured and tolerant people.  But these symptoms are indicative of a society where racist behavior is tolerated, which reinforces the reality that racial intolerance is acceptable in public.

That this behavior can continue with impunity is an indictment of a society because society-at-large is responsible for creating the parameters of what passes for acceptable behavior.  If it is acceptable for a group of people to chant racist slogans in a stadium, then conceivably, it’s not completely unacceptable to throw bananas at someone in a bar.  The basic premise of both acts is that the target is a worthy target because of his or her skin color.

The United States offers an interesting comparison point.  No one would be naïve enough to say that there are no racists in the United States.  That would be a highly ignorant statement.   But it tells you something about societal acceptance that you will not go to a professional sporting match in the United States and see swastikas flown on banners or hear racist chants whenever a player of color touches the ball.  At any major U.S. sporting event, this will not happen.  But it isn’t because people don’t harbor any racial animosity.  It is simply because, for the most part, this is no longer considered tolerable public behavior.  There are, however, pockets of the United States where public displays of racism are more common than others.  In these places the same principle that I have applied to Italian football venues applies.  Public behavior tells you something about a community.  But generally over time, most places in the United States have developed basic parameters of conduct in public spaces.  The general rule is that racist outbursts are best kept internalized in public spaces.

Italian society needs to crack down on this sort of behavior with a heavy hand to set the precedent that this behavior is not just unacceptable at Italian football matches, but that it is unacceptable in Italian society.  Ultimately, the victim of this behavior isn’t just Mario Balotelli, but Italian residents generally, regardless of skin tone.  Those who know better must make sure that they set the standard for what is acceptable behavior and not allow racists to set the tone.  It’s time for the millions of tolerant Italians and for Italian clubs to let their voices be heard.  It’s time to show that the majority of Italians will not tolerate intolerance.