La Curva Nord

[Adriano@10]

No one is arguing that there isn't an issue.

The main problem here is that you expect Italy to fix something they don't realize is a problem to begin with. They have no fucking clue of what to do. How do you go about eradicating this from stadiums and society? Or are we going to be happy if this stays in Lampedusa and the urban centres but out of football?

First of italy very well knows that it is a problem at least the FIGC should know there have been enough scandals surrounding this that they should know that this is a issue. And i get that the average italian does not look at it like a problem but the ones in charge of Clubs and of the lega know that it is a problem and that it damages our image so fucken do something about it. Secondly yes yes we should only take it out of the stadiums there is no place in this world where there are not racist and biggoted people but we should not allow them to use the platform of football to spread their hate/message.

My take on Balotelli and the others is also irrelevant. The relevant part is how to make this not be in the headlines. And since players will be affected by it, it's going to make headlines if the people in charge don't stop it. And the people in charge are the Italian government and some ministries, not Inter or Cagliari. It's a political issue, not a football one. The football clubs cannot do much.

Again your deflecting it s totally in inters power to ban the CN or to put out a statement, will this solve racism? No it wont but atleast we re sending a message instead of sitting on our asses and go like meh this is the governments issue especially in a time when the government is led by the cinque stelle movement.

I m not saying we could solve it or cagliari could solve it but we could and should at least take a stance. ANd the least they could and should do is take away a platform of these guys.

And no your take on balo and co is not irrelevant you ve been insisting that it s just an italian thing and italians dont consider this offensive or racist well here s an example of three italians who felt it was offensive and it was racist so yes it does matter. You cannot just say that it s not considered a problem in that very society?culture when in fact a part of the society(The one that is affected) very much looks at it as a problem.

 

[GenDire]

The club was not founded on internationalism.

This false origin myth has to be busted at some point because without the original context we are getting lost in translation. I understand for some it's quite nice to have this globalist origin myth, but we need to understand what really happened here.

Paging Alex Jones

 

[Icardio]

Jesus christ brehme just stop.

 

[Puma]

With all due respect to your posts Brehme, I feel you are minimising the manner in which racism in Italy impacts football and daily life and you are attempting to defend the indefensible. I have read through your posts over the last couple of pages and find their content very difficult to accept and digest. Personally, I feel your responses fall into the category of those offered by Italian politicians or the Lega and go a long way to explaining Italy's struggles with the malaise of racism and why they simply can not move forward or progress.

The only other thought I have is the manner in which English commentators are heavily criticising our Ultras. However, one thing I have noticed is that throughout all of the pages that I have read since the game against Cagliari, most posters have focused on Italy, Inter and the Curva Nord but have failed to seemingly consider or ask the most obvious question, and that is: How is Romelu Lukaku coping with all of this? How has it impacted his arrival in Italy? Does the silence of his club give rise to concerns or doubts about his move and new life in Italy?

 

[Ethor]

How is Romelu Lukaku coping with all of this? How has it impacted his arrival in Italy? Does the silence of his club give rise to concerns or doubts about his move and new life in Italy?

Very good questions and it is troubling that Inter management has not responded at all publicly. What Steven's email address? Perhaps we should voice our displeasure with the way the club is handling this more directly.

 

[brehme1989]

The only other thought I have is the manner in which English commentators are heavily criticising our Ultras. However, one thing I have noticed is that throughout all of the pages that I have read since the game against Cagliari, most posters have focused on Italy, Inter and the Curva Nord but have failed to seemingly consider or ask the most obvious question, and that is: How is Romelu Lukaku coping with all of this? How has it impacted his arrival in Italy? Does the silence of his club give rise to concerns or doubts about his move and new life in Italy?

That's a personal question for Lukaku and he's only made an Instagram post about it. We cannot speculate on how he feels about specific things but it is natural that he, like everyone else who has suffered from these kind of attacks, is devastated by the experience. And possibly even more by the faux-support the CN gave him with this announcement.

But do you want us to pretend as if this was not something we knew he'd face? Go to his transfer thread and you'd see quite a few posters concerned about his ability to cope with this kind of shit.
It's not like this was the most unexpected thing. This is what I mean. We all knew this was bound to happen and people are acting as if it's the first time they see this.

Just because we don't want these things to happen it doesn't mean we can just wish it away.

 

[Anne Marie]

Brehme posts are actually very well articulated.

1) 'Racism' (understood in a sense of racial differentiation) is 'disgusting'. The question is: how much? and also Is the Declaration put an end to everything? Is that 'equal individual rights' something of a cosmopolitan culture, deeply embedded in a world of diversity? I would argue that: The Declaration and the Two Covenants serve as legal 'weapons' for the idea of universal individual rights (Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity).

2) What is the 'enemy' in that battle? Nationalism. After the French Revolution, Napoleon rised to power and was defeated. Concert of Vienna in 1815 was trying to stop 'liberal civic nationalism'. A 'civic' nation-state identifies a state wherein a community of people consenting to give up some of their sovereign freedom in exchange for protection. The state protect people's rights. Liberal civic nationalism once again was crushed by Italian and German unification in 1871. "We have created Italy, let create the Italian". This is what legal positivists said back in the day. What they did was 'ethnic nationalism', instead of 'civic'. Italy is not merely a group of individuals seeking a state but an "ethnic" community bounded by a 'culture'. More important is that cultures aint equal. Culture is gradually understood in a sense of civilization - we are just better than other communities. In that scenario, 'race' theory was so devastating as it became the 'scientific content' for moral prejudices. We have a better culture, not because of our ancestors but we share the same bloodline of a better race. Nationalism was idealized into 'culture' and then reified into biological 'race'. Gradually this whole complex evolves into disasters by the time of the Nazi. (Note that: what happened in Italy and Germany deeply influenced Japan/China cultural chauvinism). Until Hiroshima and Nagasaki, racism was... OK. Racist imperialism was justified by nationalism.

3) But 'ideas' never die as 'racism' lingers within different communities with different intensities. To be honest, I feel really sorry for the Jews but the intensity of my 'sorryness' cant be compared with people who experienced Auschwitz. At the other side, should I say: some are more racist than other? The Declaration is not the end of the battle. The fight will continue and we have to acknowledge that diversity makes the battle much more complicated.

4) A broader point is that every historical epoch, there is an order of things. Go back to history and try to explain to the Roman that hey, its wrong to throw Christians into collosium for sport! Today, as the regime of humanity has evolved to a very different epoch, the order of things (hopefully) will crystallize into a 'cosmopolitan culture' of liberty, equality and fraternity. But with Brexit, China's rising and Trump, it seems that ethnic nationalism insidiously blending with old idea of racism has not given up the fight.

 

[Ethor]

Correct, thats why many here are demanding action and a strong public response. To do nothing, to say its a complex and difficult issue, are frankly cop outs. To have the club we all support public face dictated by a couple of hundred who masturbate while reading Mein Kampf is unacceptable.

 

[Adriano@10]

But do you want us to pretend as if this was not something we knew he'd face? Go to his transfer thread and you'd see quite a few posters concerned about his ability to cope with this kind of shit.
It's not like this was the most unexpected thing. This is what I mean. We all knew this was bound to happen and people are acting as if it's the first time they see this.

But this is exactly what is pissing me off we all knew this was gonna happen sooner or later many of us suspected that him and the curva will clash at some point. The sad thing here and what pisses me of is the non reaction from our club. How do we expect this to ever stop if we dont do shit against it?
Just because we all saw it coming does not mean we should be okay with it. If you think a guy s gonna punch you in the face and evenrtually he does your not just gonna be there like well i expected that so it s all good right?

And the other thing that pisses me of i still think at one point black players will just not want to come here if they have other offers, i know that i would think twice about joining a team where i know that the fan base is fucken racist even more so if i was black.

 

[Jane The Virgin]

Ok, let's play this game...

If curvas main objective is to support inter and Lukaku is a player of inter, then no matter what he says, right or wrong, they should support him and not the cucks from cagliari.


But nah... Fuck that shit, curva chose to play a retard game.

 

[Materazzi_23]

Inter-Lazio is coming up, can't wait to see what kind of stupid things will happen at this match.

 

[brehme1989]

Ok, let's play this game...

If curvas main objective is to support inter and Lukaku is a player of inter, then no matter what he says, right or wrong, they should support him and not the cucks from cagliari.


But nah... Fuck that shit, curva chose to play a retard game.

You obviously do not know the ultra' lifestyle.

For them, players come and go. Clubs and Ultras stick around. It's an unwritten code in the ultras way of life that you cannot be a snitch. Their very existence relies on mutual respect. And they fight each other when they view the others as lacking respect towards each other. Or just because they are meant to (eg local or competitive rivalries). But if you see Inter and Ascoli fighting, it's because one of the sides seriously fucked up and a vendetta caught on. This example is based on real events.

So it is common that they will side with other ultras on "existential" issues.

 

[Jane The Virgin]

You obviously do not know the ultra' lifestyle.

For them, players come and go. Clubs and Ultras stick around. It's an unwritten code in the ultras way of life that you cannot be a snitch. Their very existence relies on mutual respect. And they fight each other when they view the others as lacking respect towards each other. Or just because they are meant to (eg local or competitive rivalries). But if you see Inter and Ascoli fighting, it's because one of the sides seriously fucked up and a vendetta caught on. This example is based on real events.

So it is common that they will side with other ultras on "existential" issues.

Nah, I obviously do know their lifestyle, you can read the previous 1/2 pages and see my example.

But you can't use that as your argument, that they side with cagliari. That's like saying all pilots in the ww2 sided with eachother and played fun games up in the air while everyone else was killing one another.

They are inter Ultras, the only reason the exist is because of the team, and the only reason there is a team (at least in serie a) it's because of the players. Brehme, it's pretty obvious that they are racist as well, not saying Nazi racist but racist non the less.

 

[dax21]

To do nothing, to say its a complex and difficult issue, are frankly cop outs.

Except it is a complex and difficult issue and if you think otherwise you are nothing but delusional. Reading the past few pages, it's quite silly how naive some people are, believing that the issue is of binary nature with proprietary equally binary solutions. And on a more subjective notion - how some still manage to not be completely desensitized to unfairness and injustice of the modern society.

I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble here, but it's absolutely impossible to change a country's culture on a nation-wide level, especially a country like Italy that has a strong cultural heritage when it comes to all things of sociological nature. This isn't ignoring the problem but merely facing reality - Italy is a racist country and nothing can change that. You can sweep it under the rug but you cannot change people's minds.
Some people seem adamant to face one problem with another problem's solution. That won't work. What I mean by this is that people want to combat racism by preventing such people from attending matches. Sure, you can issue bans, point deductions for clubs or even stop matches but this won't neutralize racism, it will just remove its symptoms from sporting events. Racism will still exist, you will just provide a nice pink bubble for yourself where you don't get to see it and don't get phased by it anymore.

I especially want to state how strongly I feel against any sort of penalization towards the club instead of the individuals that are causing the problem because once you start deducting points, stopping matches, issuing fines left and right, banning home attendance - this just opens a clusterfuck of new problems because false-flagging will immediately become a thing.

However, what we can and what we have to do is distance ourselves as a club from it, as far as possible. Stronger statements need to be made from individual players, from the management. And it has to be immediate following any future incident instead of waiting for the problem to become stale in media.

What I find very annoying subjectively, and borderline hypocritical too, is the sheer plastic outrage by certain people, be it in comments or celebrities themselves. If we were to create a graph showing a spectrum of racial abuse, from the most minuscule to the absolutely vilest possible, rest assured that a millionaire athlete being verbally (not even verbal because it's just noise technically, not words) provoked through jest, and yes it is jest, as poor attempt at humor as it might be - would lay low at the very bottom of the spectrum. Yet the disproportional amount of outrage it's causing is insane because... why? Because we care about the player in question? Because he is wearing our shirt? Because we follow his funny pictures on instagram?

There are daily instances of racism around everyone that are far more gravely serious with far more serious consequences yet this is the hill that some of you want to die on? It's unintentionally hilarious.

 

[Jane The Virgin]

Saying and writing it with bold fonts that there is nothing to be done about racism in Italy makes me laugh tbh...

You could buy a personal slave not too long ago literally in USA... See how that changed?

It is very simple. There are cameras, use em, blast the person publicly, where he works, his name, his family, yadda yadda...


And see how it stops within a single season all of this.

 

[dax21]

Saying and writing it with bold fonts that there is nothing to be done about racism in Italy makes me laugh tbh...

Rejecting reality is just as comical from other person's perspective. You also misquoted me there, I never said there is nothing to be done about it, go re-read what I wrote. Very different things fundamentally.

You could buy a personal slave not too long ago literally in USA... See how that changed?

Has nothing to do with the argument at hand. When I say "racism" I mean an idea, a personal conviction, a belief. None of that is illegal, and none of it physically affects anyone. Owning a slave on the other hand very much so does. Did this really need to be explained?

It is very simple. There are cameras, use em, blast the person publicly, where he works, his name, his family, yadda yadda...

Extreme authoritarianism and totalitarianism that you suggest is just as bad as racism. What you recommend leads to pure Orwellianism because a society that implements your, quite frankly, poor ideas won't start nor stop with using them at incidents of racism alone.

 

[Jane The Virgin]

Calling out publicly racists is as bad as being a racist.


Ok. Clearly we should agree to disagree.

 

[Ethor]

Except it is a complex and difficult issue and if you think otherwise you are nothing but delusional. Reading the past few pages, it's quite silly how naive some people are, believing that the issue is of binary nature with proprietary equally binary solutions. And on a more subjective notion - how some still manage to not be completely desensitized to unfairness and injustice of the modern society.

I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble here, but it's absolutely impossible to change a country's culture on a nation-wide level, especially a country like Italy that has a strong cultural heritage when it comes to all things of sociological nature. This isn't ignoring the problem but merely facing reality - Italy is a racist country and nothing can change that. You can sweep it under the rug but you cannot change people's minds.
Some people seem adamant to face one problem with another problem's solution. That won't work. What I mean by this is that people want to combat racism by preventing such people from attending matches. Sure, you can issue bans, point deductions for clubs or even stop matches but this won't neutralize racism, it will just remove its symptoms from sporting events. Racism will still exist, you will just provide a nice pink bubble for yourself where you don't get to see it and don't get phased by it anymore.

I especially want to state how strongly I feel against any sort of penalization towards the club instead of the individuals that are causing the problem because once you start deducting points, stopping matches, issuing fines left and right, banning home attendance - this just opens a clusterfuck of new problems because false-flagging will immediately become a thing.

However, what we can and what we have to do is distance ourselves as a club from it, as far as possible. Stronger statements need to be made from individual players, from the management. And it has to be immediate following any future incident instead of waiting for the problem to become stale in media.

What I find very annoying subjectively, and borderline hypocritical too, is the sheer plastic outrage by certain people, be it in comments or celebrities themselves. If we were to create a graph showing a spectrum of racial abuse, from the most minuscule to the absolutely vilest possible, rest assured that a millionaire athlete being verbally (not even verbal because it's just noise technically, not words) provoked through jest, and yes it is jest, as poor attempt at humor as it might be - would lay low at the very bottom of the spectrum. Yet the disproportional amount of outrage it's causing is insane because... why? Because we care about the player in question? Because he is wearing our shirt? Because we follow his funny pictures on instagram?

There are daily instances of racism around everyone that are far more gravely serious with far more serious consequences yet this is the hill that some of you want to die on? It's unintentionally hilarious.

Well stated, of course racist behavior complex and difficult I agree. The problem is management has done nothing publicly nor have any of our sponsors. Of course , being an American, I do not know the culture of Italy, nor am I particularly pleased with my country's past and current xenophobic behavior. In fact, in the US, it is increasing. However, I believe, we must voice our displeasure with the current deafening silence our club is currently taking.

Are the strategies I've outlined above, in previous posts; banning them and point deductions the answer? Hell I don't know, on a country wide basis you are probably right. However we must start somewhere, having zero tolerance for racist behavior should be the norm , at least in the entertainment industry. People's may change over a generation or two what is wrong with starting now, albeit small steps, to a brighter future.

 

[dax21]

Blast the person publicly, where he works, his name, his family, yadda yadda...

Calling out publicly racists is as bad as being a racist.

Calling out someone and punishing people by association are two very different things.
And damn right we agree to disagree.

 

[Jane The Virgin]

Calling out someone and punishing people by association are two very different things.
And damn right we agree to disagree.

Well next time someone will have the urge to make a monkey sound he will think about his kids/parents and what that action will do to them.

What will his co-workers think of him, his neighbors etc...

Just an example: let's say I make that sound, and there is a clear video evidence of that, the news should go:

Jane the Virgin started the incident. Male, 30 years old, living with his fiance Janita the Virgin. He works as a this and that, he is the kid of Jerome the Virgin and Jamaica the Virgin. Bla bla bla...


This, this was my idea of blasting him. I probably didn't expressed myself clear enough... But yeah... This is what I believe should be done, and will drastically within a season change everythin. And after 5-10 years at most, this whole thing will be a history.