Bananas, racist?

O maestre

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Jesus, everybody got this wrong. They're not attacking him for his race, they're attacking him for being from South America. It's very common in Spain to be condescending towards "bananero" countries, i.e. countries that are stereotypically said to live off banana exportations. The implication being they're culturally backwards countries. "Bananero" is their go-to insult when attacking us. It has nothing to do with race.
I have never heard of that, I have heard of the expression of a Bannana Republic as a derogatory remark against developing countries. I am half Brazilian and have never heard the term bananero or bananeiro... well I have heard Bananeira which is where the fruit comes from. It wouldn't make sense anyway since Brazil was never a Spanish colony.

I have however seen and heard of Banana's being used for comparing black people or non-whites to sub-human apes, both on and off the pitch.

And as other posters have mentioned banana's aren't have been thrown on the pitch before, and aren't the only things that racist hooligans do at matches. Most commonly they shout chimp calls at or other obscenities. That incident was about racism, there is no doubt.

Football in Europe has attracted a lot of racist hooligans, I'll give you an example English team Tottenham and dutch team Ajax, have both been mercilessly heckled for being Jewish, all kinds of ugly things, why? They are not owned or contain a large number of Jews now, but in the old days both teams accepted immigrant Jews into them at a time when Europe was less tolerant of the Jewish people. The racist insults that began back then are still present now.

Hell even wikipedia has a page dedicated to it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_association_football#Europe
 
Oct 22, 2011
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Flames66 said:
MrCalavera said:
Flames66 said:
Eamar said:
snip
Or it could just be someone of the opposing side throwing whatever they had in their hand. Labeling as racism anything that could possibly be interpreted as such is very unhelpful.
Sure. For example: Someone who shows you a middle finger might just want you to check if his nail isn't broken.

On european stadiums this gesture will most likely mean one thing. I don't know about other places, though.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Flames66 said:
Eamar said:
I'd imagine it has to do with the racist comparisons of black people to monkeys. You know, like how monkeys are always stereotypically depicted as eating bananas.
But the guy isn't black. It seems far more likely to me that someone in the audience had a banana in their hand and thought "I am Angry! Take That!!".
"Bananero" is a popular insult Spanish people use against South Americans. It implies that as third world versions of their culture, we're only good for exporting said fruit. This is largely owed to a more or less true stereotype (lots of countries, such as Ecuador, almost exclusively thrive on banana exports) and a historical spite for the continent.

O maestre said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
Jesus, everybody got this wrong. They're not attacking him for his race, they're attacking him for being from South America. It's very common in Spain to be condescending towards "bananero" countries, i.e. countries that are stereotypically said to live off banana exportations. The implication being they're culturally backwards countries. "Bananero" is their go-to insult when attacking us. It has nothing to do with race.
I have never heard of that, I have heard of the expression of a Bannana Republic as a derogatory remark against developing countries. I am half Brazilian and have never heard the term bananero or bananeiro... well I have heard Bananeira which is where the fruit comes from. It wouldn't make sense anyway since Brazil was never a Spanish colony.
That's probably it, because in Argentina I've heard it a number of times.
 

EvilRoy

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Flames66 said:
albino boo said:
Flames66 said:
Or it could just be someone of the opposing side throwing whatever they had in their hand. Labeling as racism anything that could possibly be interpreted as such is very unhelpful.
Yeah mate your edl isn't racist because its the only thing you had clean
Some elaboration is required. I have no idea what an "edl" is.
I think he's referencing the English Defense League, probably specifically the face masks or insignia. The idea being, I think, that if you choose to act out or wear something symbolic of a particular viewpoint, then you implicitly endorse that viewpoint.

Yes this can happen accidentally (AVON offering Japanese women perfume was a big one), but these guys are fully aware of their own cultural context. The player posted the pic with the tag #weareallmonkeys, so we at least know what he thought.
 

Mr. Eff_v1legacy

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The Almighty Aardvark said:
Smart teacher, you probably should have paid more attention to what she said.
"Smart teacher"? Good lord. She ended the discussion without attempting to make any kind of an argument. "I'm right and you just can't see it" is not an argument.

Lusty said:
I think you're just trying to be contrarian here. Throwing bananas and making monkey signs at black footballers is unfortunately a long running tradition in Europe, and it really is an unambiguous gesture. It's been happening for as long as black players have existed which, in itself is not as long as it should have been. John Barnes in the 80s was one of the first high profile black players in the sport and he had bananas thrown at him on a fairly regular basis, even by his own fans when he played for England.
I wasn't aware of that, nor this particular gesture's recurrent nature. That changes things completely. Thanks for clearing that up.
 

PsychicTaco115

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I wouldn't say racist but they are definitely sexist!

100% of bananas look like this


And yet none look like vaginas!

Do you even equally represent?
 

direkiller

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Ubiquitous Duck said:
tage of Dani used to show him eating the banana.

Similar happened in Football in England recently, a referee (or match official) gave a punishment/penalty to the wrong player, presumably because the two guys look very similar to each other and he got mixed up which was which, but because they were both black, it was considered racist by lots of people.
Thats it?
Sheesh in Pro US football I have seen refs say the wrong team when giving a penalty, the wrong player happens about once a game.
(admittedly they all do look the same with helmets and pads on) and the official record is separate of the ref telling the stadium so it's a non issue.

It's so common it never makes it on sports clips funny reels.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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Not just at a player, at a South American player. Countries said to have the banana as an economic staple. And he took it the best possible way.
 

ThatDarnCoyote

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Godlikebuthumble said:
For our friends across the pond (NAmerica in particular):
- Imagine a sport where black players haven't been a massive influence since basically forever. So... ice hockey.
- Now, I'd like you to imagine one team has a black player.
- The moment he skates onto the ice, some jackass throws a bag of cotton balls onto the ice. A couple others in the bleachers make whipcrack noises and gestures.
So, basically, Joel Ward [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/post/racist-tweets-about-joel-ward-after-bruins-loss-to-capitals-is-another-ugly-mark-for-nhl/2012/04/26/gIQAjfZQjT_blog.html]. Only instead of cotton balls or bananas, it's BS on Twitter. Anyway, whether the throwing of the banana was racist or not (it most likely was), throwing stuff at people makes you an asshole anyway.

While I admire Alves' pluck, eating something some asshole throws at you seems like a risky idea. Next time they'll probably spike it with something. Cause racists are dicks like that.
 

Ubiquitous Duck

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direkiller said:
Ubiquitous Duck said:
tage of Dani used to show him eating the banana.

Similar happened in Football in England recently, a referee (or match official) gave a punishment/penalty to the wrong player, presumably because the two guys look very similar to each other and he got mixed up which was which, but because they were both black, it was considered racist by lots of people.
Thats it?
Sheesh in Pro US football I have seen refs say the wrong team when giving a penalty, the wrong player happens about once a game.
(admittedly they all do look the same with helmets and pads on) and the official record is separate of the ref telling the stadium so it's a non issue.

It's so common it never makes it on sports clips funny reels.
It was kind of a fake-drama drama around it.

Because people just really poked fun at him for the mistake. I don't think the majority of people were actually suggesting he is racist. It's a real rarity to book (penalise) the wrong guy, so it would've been jumped on regardless, but there was this kind of 'so they all look the same to you, ey?' vibe around the whole thing.

I think it was quite light-hearted really and didn't last long in the media, but they always move onto something new so that's not surprising. There's a lot more serious s*** happening in football to worry about than a referee mixing up two guys.
 

TheMigrantSoldier

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CrossLOPER said:
IceForce said:
So okay, why is throwing a banana at someone considered a racist act?
Do you seriously not understand why throwing a banana at a dark-skinned individual might be considered racist? Are you totally unaware of comparisons to monkeys? Are you totally unaware at the MASSIVE racism problem that futbol is dealing with?
Gosh, everything is misconstrued these days! If someone is flailing his arms around like a certain species and throwing bananas at a person with darker skin, it could just mean that he simply behaves that way and wants the player to have a healthy potassium intake!

Heck, if someone is dressed up like a ghost yelling "white power!", it could just mean that he has an appreciation for the dead and the highlighting of white as an artist.