PSG v IB abandoned

SmallTown said:
Exactly. I used it myself year ago at work. Someone asked me to point out one of my colleagues. As he was the only black man in a large group of white men it was simply the easiest way of describing who he was.
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My initial reaction is that I agree with this and in the past I'd probably do the same (and probably have at some point). Why would you avoid doing so, it's not like it's an insult or being black is anything to be ashamed of?

However I only have the perspective of a white man and am more than happy to be educated as to why that's wrong. Knowing that some people would have a problem with it means I don't or wouldn't do it now to be on the safe side, but I admit I'm still not entirely clear on why.
 
If a person feels that they have been subjected to an act of racism then this needs to be dealt with,refarfless of language barrier.

As mentioned above the correct thing to do would have been to replace the 4th official, Webo should still have been sent off as that incident occurred first (out of curiosity do we know what he was being sent off for?), finish the match and then investigate.

If through the investigation it is found the the 4th official did use the term and Webo found it offensive then he needs to face appropriate punishment and be educated as to why Webo found it offensive.

It really wasn't a difficult situation to resolve.
 
Pak_Doo_Ik said:
If a person feels that they have been subjected to an act of racism then this needs to be dealt with,refarfless of language barrier.
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Of course it needs dealing with and the players were right to walk off. I'm glad they did, its been a long time coming.

My point is that maybe before we hang, draw and quarter the 4th official maybe we need to find out the intent of what he said. I've heard calls on twitter that his career should be over now, I think people need to slow down a bit.
 
1finny said:
It appears from this thread that some are challenging the players who made a decision to walk off after they believed an official used racist language.
ergo
Intolerant of their decision
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Maybe aim that criticism at those who are challenging the players then, not me.
 
Reading parts of this thread and the adversarial way people try to state their viewpoints is precisely why there is so far to go to deal with racism.

It will never reach the point it should unless there is room for proper understanding of all viewpoints, even when they are wrong. Castigating people will only harden their prejudice, unconscious as it may be.
 
Uwefuchs said:
Of course it needs dealing with and the players were right to walk off. I'm glad they did, its been a long time coming.

My point is that maybe before we hang, draw and quarter the 4th official maybe we need to find out the intent of what he said. I've heard calls on twitter that his career should be over now, I think people need to slow down a bit.

I agree and is the point I was trying to make, let's investigate what happened and what was said and then deal with it appropriately.
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I think this is a case where education over punishment is required. Difficult to understand the full context with a language barrier but it doesnt seem to me like it was an intentional racist gesture, possibly a cultural/language issue that the official certainly needs educating about. Not that it makes it right at all, but a little context is needed before the bloke looses his career over it.
 
JM14 said:
I think this is a case where education over punishment is required. Difficult to understand the full context with a language barrier but it doesnt seem to me like it was an intentional racist gesture, possibly a cultural/language issue that the official certainly needs educating about. Not that it makes it right at all, but a little context is needed before the bloke looses his career over it.
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Surely it isn't the official who needs educating, but everyone who thinks it is racist to describe a black person as black.
 
We don't have all the information but if it is purely a language thing then are we saying the word for "black" in certain languages should be avoided and therefore anyone from those countries working abroad needs educating as to not use the word?

Or we saying describing a player as black in any language is unacceptable (surely not?).

It's vast oversimplification to say he used a word similar to negro therefore he's a massive racist.

I get why the players did what they did, within their rights based on what they thought had happened (and maybe there's more to it and the guy did use an insult and is trying to excuse it, not for me to say). But if it is genuinely a language problem then sensible dialogue on all sides is needed, not a witch hunt.
 
SmallTown said:
Definitely the language barrier thing. You can easily say something in one language that sounds worse than it is. In this case the word Black is fine. However when said in a romance language such as Romanian it sounds too similar to the n word and you can see how misunderstanding happens
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This. Same with the Cavani thing. Guidelines need to be set, as this sort of thing trivialises actual racist abuse.
 
But he doesn't use the word black, he uses his native language and this is very similar to the n word and if overheard could be easily mistaken for this horrible word.
 
Pak_Doo_Ik said:
But he doesn't use the word black, he uses his native language and this is very similar to the n word and if overheard could be easily mistaken for this horrible word.
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I think that the issue is beyond a simple misunderstanding of words though.
Even after it was explained, there was still clearly offense taken that he'd referred to Pierre Webo as "the black one".
 
My first impression was that it was a mishearing of the Romanian word for black that caused the incident, players on both benches reacted and walked off, I think both teams accepted that explanation hence they were willing to continue the match with a replacement 4th official, I abhor racism and prejudice of any kind but using ethnicity as an identifier to me is not racist and my feeling is that in this instance the 4th official was not being racist, perhaps my view is naive and because I carry no prejudice myself I don’t see the negative connotations that these words may carry and I’m happy to be educated if I have this wrong.
 
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