Vinicius and racism in Spain: it's not just football
How many times over the past two years have we talked about increased racism and xenophobia in Spain, driven by the political polarisation of the public sphere after Vox, Spain’s version of the new far-right, appeared in 2018 and began to shift the Overton Window towards tribal division, the rejection of “others” and hatred once more, with everyone egged on by social media algorithms that seek clicks and reward attention and visceral emotion?
Spanish Twitter exploded overnight after Real Madrid player Vinicius was racially abused again at a match against Valencia. Valencia fans began outside the stadium with chants of “Vincius, you’re a monkey”. On the pitch, the abuse continued: “fucking black guy, bastard, idiot, fucking black bastard, dog, monkey, you’re a fucking monkey”, etc, etc, along with the monkey grunts.
“It wasn't the first time, nor the second, nor the third”, Vinicius tweeted afterwards: “Racism is normal in La Liga. The competition thinks it's normal, the Federation does too and the opponents encourage it”, adding: “I'm sorry for the Spaniards who don't agree, but today, in Brazil, Spain is known as a country of racists”.
International sports media are clear about what happened: ‘Racism is normal in La Liga’: Vinícius Júnior outraged by abuse at Valencia (Guardian); Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior says Spain's La Liga 'belongs to the racists' after pointing out abusers during match (Sky); Real Madrid player Vinícius Jr. racially abused during Spanish La Liga match (CNN); Vinicius Junior says Spanish league ‘now belongs to racists’ after enduring more abuse (AP); and on and so forth.
La Liga chairman Javier Tebas, though, decided to rant on Twitter…against Vincius…for not understanding what he promises his league has been trying to do to stop racism in the top tier of Spanish football: “Antes de criticar e injuriar a @LaLiga, es necesario que te informes adecuadamente @Vinijr”. Marca reports the previous nine complaints filed with authorities by La Liga over racism against Vinicius have gone almost nowhere. A few fans have had their season tickets temporarily revoked. The racist tribal chants in stadiums continue.
This terrible, polarised, divisive and at times openly racist public sphere, between politics and football, in Spain, which did not at all use to be like this, is the environment that we now have to watch our kids grow up in and in which they will become teenagers during their most formative years. Because if they see political leaders on TV dividing and pointing and ranting against “others”, who just happen to be black and North African, and then they see football fans shouting “fucking monkey” slogans at black players on the pitch, and noboby, including the authorities, does anything about it, well then they will come to believe that it is okay to do that, that it’s all just a bit of a laugh with the lads, no problem, and look at all the retweets on the videos, and the vicious cycle will continue.
In theory, as a planet over the last couple of centuries, we had all learnt that rampant polarised nationalism and racist hatred towards “others” were very bad things that led to even worse things happening as societies. The concepts of human rights and the rule of law didn’t come out of nowhere. Now in the third decade of the 21st century, after tribal politics and social media algorithms have again encouraged increasing polarisation and division, leading to the rise of the new far-right in many countries, not just Spain, we again find ourselves in a new vicious cycle that excludes some and sets them up as “others” to be hated and vilified, rather than including all and striving to better the whole for everyone. So we must try again, we must learn again. It’s not just football.
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Whilst there is, undoubtedly, a general increase in publicly expressed racism, I feel that, in the case cited, calling it racism is to oversimplify the situation. The same team fields other players of African descent (Ruydyger, Camavinga, Rodrygo, etc) who are not, generally, targets of racist chants. Why Vinicius? Could it be because, leaving aside any consideration of colour or race, he is a despicable human being, an arrogant ill-educated imbecile who constantly, during every single match, provokes and despises rivals, the public and the referees?