“There are no black Italians!”

This is the first line of an article just published at Time magazine's website about Mario
Balotelli, an Italian soccer player - well, these days THE Italian soccer player. It's
also a popular chant in Italy during the matches he plays in.

His nickname is Super Mario to some. This is where he used to go to work:
(Author shows picture of European football fans holding Nazi flags)

Racism in European soccer is a problem. It's a problem for the sport all over the world
really. As more people of color achieve success in European leagues long dominated by
whites, resentment is high.

Mario Balotelli was born in Sicily to Ghanaian parents. He endured horrible racism from
chanting Italians while becoming a star in Serie A Italian club soccer. This past season
he starred on the English Premier League winning Manchester City team. Now the Italian
national team he's leading will be in the Euro2012 Final against Spain, he having just
scored the two goals that beat Germany today.

Mario is no stranger to controversy. He taunts the fans. He walks the field like Ali
walked the ring. The uneasiness between him and many in the stands is always palpable.
When he goes to work, he knows he'll see and hear racial taunting that would lead to
serious violence in different contexts.

Like many of the American sports stars we remember most, Balotelli is a pioneer in his
sport and every professional success he has is another blow against racism and prejudice.

Indeed, just this week the leading Italian sports daily ran a cartoon of Balotelli as King
Kong, which DuBois noted was using a “racial vocabulary not that far from that of the
Croatian fans” fined by the tournament organizers for throwing bananas onto the pitch to
humiliate Balotelli.

...

One day, young black Italian kids will be unproblematically integrated into the national
football team, perhaps even into the nation it represents. And when that happens, they’ll
look back on Mario Balotelli as their Jackie Robinson... There’s arguably even a little of
the young Muhammad Ali in a young man so brash and confident in his talents, yet speaking
his mind on a world whose rules he believes his stacked against him, and people like him.

PICTURE OF MOHAMMED ALI AND OBAMA HERE

I show the picture of Obama and Ali above because it always struck me as profound, as it
did for many. But I also show it because like Obama, Balotelli comes from a mixed race
background, not genetically, but he was adopted by white parents.

amid the triumphant celebrations of his teammates after the final whistle, Balotelli ran
off into the crowd and embraced an elderly white woman — Silvia Balotelli, the mother who
had adopted him at age 3, and who had held the hand of the fearful young Mario every night
until he was asleep. “These goals are for you,” he told her. She appeared to be crying.

PICTURE OF BALOTELLI HUGGING HIS ADOPTIVE ITALIAN MOTHER HERE.

Balotelli’s goals (together with an earlier one against Ireland that remains a contender
for goal of the tournament) not only confirmed him as the most dangerous striker at Euro
2012; they were direct hits on the scourge of racism that continues to dog the game. As
hundreds of thousands of Italians danced with joy on the streets at his achievement,
Balotelli took off his shirt — an offense that requires a yellow card under the rules of
the game — and clenched his muscles like a body builder. Here is my black Italian skin, he
seemed to be saying, to the people of the country that adopted him but which hasn’t
necessarily accepted him, and remains plagued with a prejudice that denies his dignity.
There he stood, an Italian hero black and proud, inviting his teammates, and all of Italy,
to embrace him — and along with him, a different concept of the boundaries of Italian
identity. The impact on millions of Italians will have been electric. And who can doubt
that the tens of thousands of African migrants who live on the margins of some of Italy’s
larger cities will have walked a lot taller on Thursday night.

“There are no black Italians!” So go the chants even now and they'll continue. But as
people of color continue to excel in venues they hadn't previously had access to, and via
personal stories and images like those above - progress happens, Change happens, and
talent keeps rising to the top, where it belongs.

And PS, when I saw that picture of Balotelli just above today (after he scored his 2nd
goal), I couldn't ignore the fact that it's how I felt after hearing the Supreme Court's
judgement on Obama's healthcare plan.


Reproduced from DailyKos.com
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/29/1104289/--There-are-no-black-Italians

P.S: Daily Kos is left leaning website with strong affiliations with the Democratic Party
in the US. That's why the author kept making political analogies despite the fact that this
is a post about European football.