UEFA opens disciplinary case against Busquets

[sukha4.livejournal.com]

 UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against FC Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets, who is alleged to have violated Article 11 bis of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations by directing racist abuse towards a Real Madrid CF player in the UEFA Champions League semi-final first leg between the clubs on 27 April.

The proceedings have been launched on the basis of evidence provided by Real Madrid (video and statement of club and player). The UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body will deal with the case on Sunday 15 May and the decision will be communicated to the club on Monday 16 May.


Source: www.uefa.com/uefa/footballfirst/matchorganisation/disciplinary/news/newsid=1630422.html

I'm just glad they finally decided to do something about it. What do you think the outcome will be? 

Comments

[carminaburana.livejournal.com]

But by defining racism as only being white on non-white, doesn't that effectively automatically discount all interactions between any two groups where neither is white as irrelevant? It treats non-whites as a monolith, which we're not.

I actually meant to do the opposite. It's not just white on non-whites, but prejudice by a member of a group with greater privilege against someone with less privilege, which is where "power" comes into the equation. (the question though is on what dimensions are we accounting for privilege).

[susieinthesky.livejournal.com]

Okay, not "white on non-white", but "majority-group-with-power on powerless-minorities-collectively", which in the US is "white on non-white". The problem I have with that is it implies that lack of power/privilege is somehow unifying, which I don't think it is, and has a "my enemy's enemy is my friend"-connotation that I find very uncomfortable.

It also doesn't account for different levels of privilege that different minorities have. Unless in the US it really does just go "whites, others" with no further distinction, because here there's a definite pecking order, so to speak. I know who I have less privilege than (white people from Britain/Western&Southern Europe or South America obviously, but also Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis, Turks, Tunisians, etc.) and who I have more privilege than (black people, people from the Middle East, white Eastern Europeans(+Russians), etc.). To bundle that altogether into an "us versus them"-thing, to me seems like the people who are further up the tree denying the privilege they do have as compared to those further down. It's not "white privilege", but it's still racial privilege. And when I know I'll have an easier time finding a job than an equally qualified Romanian purely because of our respective heritages, I find that hard to fit into this idea of that whiteness alone is inherently a privilege.

Using the "power + prejudice" definition of racism prioritises institutionalised racism as the problem, which I think is backwards. In a way I don't care who has more power than me if they're exerting it in an unprejudist way. It seems like the social justice movement has said "racism" is the problem, we'll sort out racial prejudice later, but what affects me in my day-to-day life is the prejudice which, as I've mentioned, for me comes mostly from people of other minorities. For people to turn around and say "it doesn't matter, because they don't actually have any institutionalised power over you" is not exactly comforting (...not that I'm saying you're doing that, but just it's the way other convos I've had on the subject have gone).

[susieinthesky.livejournal.com]

...Just to clarify, if using the definition of institutionalised racism for racism is most effective for the US situation at the moment (an area which I'm fairly ignorant on), then okay. I'm not saying it shouldn't be if it works for the minorities involved. But it's the assumption of it applying elsewhere ("it also works in any Caucasian-dominated society, like Europe"). I don't see why we should be boxed into using American terminology for European situations - each society has its own problems with race, and whilst some aspects are universal, there are differences that have to be appreciated too.