What a coincidence, Vini. All those who deny racism in Spain are white. None of them suffer the discrimination that those of us who are not white experience in this country, none of them know what our life is like, the unbearable day to day, and, from that lack of knowledge, they seek to delegitimize our reality – which we would love to be different -, to erase it. There is no difference between these deniers, Vini, and those who assert that planet Earth is flat.
You don’t know who I am, but I won’t waste time introducing myself. You are probably resting or training. I’ll just tell you, Vini, that I am a black man who lives in Barcelona.
Since your case exploded—yes, because if you don’t know, they call it that, “the Vinicius case,” as if your sad racist experience were an isolated event, something unusual, scenes that rarely happen in Spain, “a situation of the world of football”—something surprising has happened: many Spaniards have discovered themselves to be racist. What news, Vini. When your own story, a millionaire black man who plays for the most successful soccer club in the world, who is sponsored by many of the biggest brands in the world, who is shouted monkey, chimpanzee, die, who is thrown bananas, who has to endure seeing your own shirt on the body of a doll hanging in the void from a bridge with a rope around its neck, that story, yours, strips this society naked. Because if that happens to you, Vini, what happens to the rest of us who are not white and are not millionaires and, therefore, we have to move by subway, bus, train, go to the market, walk down the street without Let the press watch over us?
We have to deal with racism cruder and more often, Vini. So much so that, since I live here in Spain, I write down in a Word document the passages of discrimination that I suffer. I want to write a book with all those racist scenes. In fact, one of the scenes has something to do with you. On the door of the building where I live, they hung a handwritten sign with a message: “Close the door to your apartment in a civilized and calm manner. “You are not living in the mountains, caves or favelas.” While reading, I remembered you—because of the favelas—and it became clear to me, Vini, that they see us, assume us and think of us as if we were Neanderthals.
Last week, for example, I was on the subway and I heard a woman shout: ‘they robbed me, they robbed me, they robbed me.’ The lady was in the same car as me, but several people away. The rest of the trip he spent looking into my eyes. I asked her why she was looking at me. The lady did not answer. When my stop came, I started walking towards the door. Behind me I heard the lady: be careful, there it goes. That’s how it happened, Vini. Because black in this country is synonymous with a thief, a miserable person—and everything bad.
I’ll tell you one more scene, Vini, that perfectly illustrates the symbolic place where we black people have been placed. A couple of days ago a torrential rain fell in Barcelona. I was on the street and I went into a bar to order a coffee. When I went to pay, I realized that I didn’t have my bank card with me. I canceled the order, left the bar and stayed sheltering from the rain under one of the umbrellas on the terrace. The terrace was full of empty chairs and tables. There was only me, but the bar clerk came out to me, under the downpour, to tell me in a very bad way: “This is not a park, go load carts.”
The lady who said such barbaric things to me is Chinese. This shows that racism is not an exclusively Spanish burden, of course. Which is a global phenomenon. Unfortunately this world is racist. Racism is systemic. It is not reduced, Vini, to those who shout racist insults at you in football stadiums. Racism is embedded everywhere, because this world is designed on racist logic. Because the world has been unbalanced since white people enslaved and colonized our ancestors. Because the power they enjoy today comes in part from those riches that were stolen from us and that, over the centuries, have increased.
It is no coincidence that in most museums, in most publishing houses, in most media, in cinema, on television, we black people are conspicuous by our absence. That’s why I thank you for showing the body, Vini. That’s why it hurts me that you cry in front of white journalists who ask you about the scars that racism has left you. If you can, Vini, don’t stop. Your voice is that of all black people.
You know something, Vini. I’m not surprised that there is a flood of white people who are bothered by your fight. The same thing happens to me with close people. It is difficult for them to accept racism because that is how they expose themselves. Them and their privileges. Them and their history. How can they be racist, Vini, if they are European, Western, First World. Well yes, they are racist and the worst thing is that many don’t even know it.
Another thing, Vini. Do you know what I find incredible? How people justify racist attacks against you by claiming that you call your opponents a son of a bitch, that you provoke them, that you are a pimp, that you make fun of them. As if that attitude of yours will authorize the attacks you suffer. It is the same case as when a woman wears a short skirt and a man, for that reason, understands that he can disturb her. Have those who justify racism towards you because of your behavior, realized that the vast majority of footballers call their opponents son of a bitch, provoke them and are cocky? What happens is that white people are forgiven for that, Vini. Or did you ever hear someone shout at your idol Cristiano Ronaldo, the most egocentric player in the history of football, something like “Die, polar bear—I couldn’t find a better example of a white animal”?
With that same logic, there are those who assert that the other blacks in Madrid are not insulted because they are not as loud as you, Vini. If such an analysis is not racist, tell us what is. They tolerate us blacks as long as we behave well. This idea is something that is experienced in our homes when we are children: the obligation to walk well-combed, perfumed if possible, with straight clothes, speak with good manners, so that they accept us and tolerate us outside, because we already have enough to deal with. be black
That’s why you have to disobey power, Vini. It is the only way to corner racism. It turns out that they have been discriminating against us for centuries and, now that we have turned a small piece of the tables on them, they feel offended, judged. Well, we’re not going to get tired, Vini. Let them learn to live with those who are not like them. As we ourselves endure them.
The last thing, Vini. I laughed so hard at what your teammate, Dani Carvajal, said about racism. He says that Spain is not racist because he grew up in a neighborhood where there were all kinds of kids. It’s the same thing they tell me: I’m not racist because I talk to you. People think that by having a black person around they have already fulfilled the necessary quota for the racistometer give them negative.
I hope you can read this letter, Vini. Black people and minimally decent people, those who care about human rights, we are with you in this battle. Fist up.
A tight hug.
Abraham Jimenez Enoa He is a Cuban journalist and author of ‘The Hidden Island’ and ‘Aterrizar en el mundo’.
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