Yaounde (National Times) – Fans hooting monkey epigrams to vilify a black player during Serie A Game has shocked the football community, for a good reason. The tremor from the shock was even more unsettling after Moise Kean, the player who was racially attacked, was criticized by his team mate and manager for celebrating his goal. Italy is noted for its high levels of racism, especially against blacks. And here is why you shouldn’t be surprised with sun-light racism in Italy.
Leonardo Bonucci, a fellow Juventus player told the press, that Moise Kane shouldn’t have celebrated his goal, by celebrating the goal, he should take part of the blame for the way fans attacked him. This is a déjà vu response, where the victim is seen as responsible for others vile behaviour. His manager added that Kane should not have celebrated before the home Cagliari fans, before adding that those who racially abused Moise Kean are “idiots who spoil things for everyone”.
The vile and disgusting racist attacks came months after Italian player Mario Balotelli told ESPN that “racism in Italy was much worse than in any other country he had played in”. SO why are Italians SOOOOOO racists? The answer is that Italy gave the world racism through the Renaissance.
Italy is celebrated as the centre of the Renaissances. A period dated between 13th and 17th century that saw massive transformation in cultural, economic, political and economic forms, ideas and practices across Europe. One of the key ideas about the Renaissance movement was that man was at the Centre of his Universe, but this was not just any man, it was a European Whiteman. Famous Renaissances gave us cultural artefacts widely celebrated and admired today, but they also gave us racism.
Modern racism, as National Times has reported, started with the Roman Catholic Church in Rome Italy. As part of the papal bulls, the world was divided into heathens and civilized men, or humans and non-humans. The former was ugly, degenerate, and dirty, while the later was beautiful, civilized and people with language.
Through the papal bulls, the Church divided cultures, and then gave European kings the right to annex and kill those who the Church thought were not equal to the Whiteman. A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
But the Church is not the only Italian Institution that created racism by categorizing different races, top Italian artists incentivise racism. Most of the famous Italian arts are works that demonstrate the alpha, universality, and power, and close connection between the white male and God. For example, Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “the Creation of Adam”, showed Adam as a white male with direct link with god, which automatically makes the white male, powerful, significant, and ideal, and at the same time, denigrate males of other races.
Besides, arts, Italy tried to give the world a universal language, Latin. The emergence of Latin was one of the fundamental pivot points to the rise of modern racism. By claiming a universal prestige, Latin gave the yard-stick by which languages were ranked superior or inferior. Languages that borrowed from Latin were seen as superior to non Latin-rooted languages. Automatically your status or being was qualified based on whether you spoke Latin or not. Races that did not have Latin as their native languages were seen as uncivilized and unwanted.
