Fined 100,000 pounds and banned for three matches for responding on social media to an acquaintance with the phrase "gracias, negrito" ('Thank you,
The FA prohibits any use of language with "reference, whether express or implied to color and/or race and/or ethnic origin".
Once he was made aware that his words might be interpreted differently, he immediately removed the post, although he has reiterated that there was no malicious intent in the post.
Commonly used both in Uruguayan Spanish and in various Latin American dialects, even the
In the history of Uruguayan soccer, the case of the captain of the world champion national team in 1950,
For the representative of the Afro-Uruguayan association "Africanía", Tomás Olivera, it is "common and ordinary" in the Spanish language and it is "nothing offensive".
"Sometimes they call me 'negro' or 'negrito' and they have said it to me with affection. You can tell by the way, by the expression, when it is something pejorative, when it is something insulting and when something is a term of affection," he tells Efe.
Olivera, an 83-year-old writer and activist, is convinced that the punishment does not take into account key cultural aspects because it has been meted out in a different cultural environment to the one in
"Cavani is a person who has shown here more than once that he is very respectful of human beings (...) from a sentimental and social point of view", he points out.
The renowned Afro-Uruguayan musician and composer
"I love being called 'Black Rada'. Before, people wanted to soften and they said 'el pardito', 'el morenito', 'el morocho'. No, the word is black," the winner of the
But a new generation of activists disagrees, such as Afro militant Lucía Martínez, who believes that this went "beyond" Cavani, since soccer "strikes a chord" with Uruguayans who have leapt to the striker's defense with a mix of ignorance and racism.
Specifically, she points out that in the Twitter messages from white people justifying why "negrito" is acceptable, the omission of the Afro position is striking.
"It seems to me that it is the black man, the black woman, who has to determine if that term is affectionate or not, and the Uruguayan cannot even have the empathy to put himself in the place of saying: 'I, a white person, am determining if the other can be offended or not,'" she tells Efe.
She adds that since being of African origins "is in the skin," it is not necessary to explicitly use these nicknames "to affectionately refer to someone because of their skin color".
"It is a vicious circle of structural racism. Whichever way you look at it, racism is totally embedded in the Uruguayan's psyche and he cannot discern it. They go into the justification and tell you the story that my father used to call me 'negrito' or 'negrita'," she says.
A more profound analysis is that of the artist and militant of the Anti-Racist Bloc,
Although, in her opinion, "Cavani's intention was not racist," Da Silva emphasizes that one must also consider the historical use of the word during the era of slavery, a crime against humanity. EFE
© 2021 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc., source