I think it’s grossly unfair to blame Bernardo for how he has ‘dealt with the situation’ in the context of him receiving a ban. He has made a mistake, deleted the tweet in a timely manner and apologised. He may have ‘caused’ the situation, but I fail to see in what way his ‘dealing with it’ is in any meaningful way, deficient.As a fan I hate to say this, but I'm afraid the club & bernardo only have themselves to blame if he gets a ban, given how shockingly badly they have dealt with the situation
Well I’m well into my 40’s and I’ve always called black people “black” it might well be the fact that I grew up, went to school with and have always mixed with black people that I don’t struggle with simple terminology.Changes so often, who can keep up
Really well considered and balanced article, that.
I think it’s grossly unfair to blame Bernardo for how he has ‘dealt with the situation’ in the context of him receiving a ban. He has made a mistake, deleted the tweet in a timely manner and apologised. He may have ‘caused’ the situation, but I fail to see in what way his ‘dealing with it’ is in any meaningful way, deficient.
He calls out Pep for saying black people / normal people.Really well considered and balanced article, that.
I don't think a foreign player should be banned for breaking British etiquette, nor do I think that anyone should be educated in these stupid codes of behaviour that benefit no one, and I am Asian..
The reason this has got far more coverage than it needed to is that the club's handling of the situation has been inept, naive, stupid and as a result, counter productive
Not many people think bernardo is a racist nor were his actions necessarily racist
Society has focussed in recent times way too much on whether specific individual actions are racist. That is nigh on irrellevant. An action can be inappropriate and/or offensive without being racist
If the club & bernardo did what they should have done, which is to quickly explain that they understand why it was inappropriate and could be misconstrued, it would have nipped it in the bud
No right minded person thinks that bernardo and mendy enjoy anything other than a very close friendly relationship which included banter between the two of them. Those posts trying to work out who may have been offended, who has been offended, how intentional it was, etc have no bearing whatsoever on that fact you have to have been living in a cave, or deliberately obtuse, to not recognize that multiple incidents of banter that keep referencing skin colour, played out to a social media audience of millions, is asking for trouble
As a fan I hate to say this, but I'm afraid the club & bernardo only have themselves to blame if he gets a ban, given how shockingly badly they have dealt with the situation
Really well considered and balanced post that, mate! :-)I've just read it and I agree. I've not commented much on this topic and couldn't be arsed getting involved in any Twitter discussion because it just descends into a cesspool of football tribalism. With regards to this forum, I think too many are adopting a siege mentality but it would be no different at any other club if it was them in the spotlight. For me, I think what Bernardo did is similar to 2 other well-documented incidents over the past couple of seasons and would put all 3 in the bracket of no malice intended but it is racial stereotyping.
The first one concerned United fans a couple of seasons back and that song they came up with about Lukaku. There was a big thread about it on Red Cafe and I found myself in the unusual position of a City fan kind of defending the fans who sang when other United fans on there were condemning the chant. In percentage terms, Red Cafe doesn't have too many match-going fans compared to here and I felt one of the match-going fans who was on there and actively posting on the thread was getting an unfair amount of stick. However, at the same time I acknowledged that the comments from Kick It Out and some posters on there that even racial stereotypes that are perceived to be positive are unacceptable too have to be taken into account. I can't remember the exact timeline but I think United eventually came out with a statement asking fans to stop singing the song. They might have even warned that fans may face action if they continued to sing it. I remember saying that once that statement came out, they really should stop singing it, but in true football fan defiance - as opposed to anything more sinister IMO - I think it got sang even more at the next game! It wasn't long after that that I think they got the message and the song died out but I came away from that Red Cafe discussion more educated on the topic than before, and that even though the intended recipient isn't offended (and I'm pretty sure Lukaku said he wasn't) then that doesn't mean others can't be.
The second one was the Tweet by Alan Sugar last year about the Senegalese football team. It's funny when you see so many doubling down in this thread in defence of Bernardo but on the Sugar thread there were plenty who were more than happy to call him out for being a racist. I think I said at the time that I didn't believe he was racist but it was racial stereotyping and so was a daft thing to tweet.
For me the common denominator in all 3 incidents is that the United fans (as a collective singing the song rather than any individuals who may hold racist views), Sugar, and Bernardo are not racist, there was no malicious intent in any of the instances, but they're all examples of racial stereotyping and shouldn't be aired in the public domain.
I'll add that if he gets a ban that would an over the top punishment and a bit of education training from Kick It Out would be more appropriate
So Joe Bloggs can post the same thing and nobody cares. Bernardo posts it and there’s uproar everywhere. The only difference being profile.
Essentially then, the bigger the profile of the poster the more notice people will take of the ’offended by everything brigade’ when they exploit that and they are exploiting that to the fullest here.
And yet Bernardo is in the wrong???
Very worrying times.