Agreed. Certain posters seem to be cherrypicking and willfully overlooking the fact that Suarez himself admitted to calling Evra a negro.
Again, to quote from the report and Suarez's defence, it doesn't matter whether it was 1 or 7 times that Suarez called him a negro. Suarez admitted to doing it at least once. That was wholly inappropriate:
Mr Suarez denied the Charge. His case, in short, was as follows. He agreed with Mr Evra
that they spoke to each other in Spanish in the goalmouth. When Mr Evra asked why he
had kicked him, Mr Suarez replied that it was a normal foul and shrugged his shoulders.
Mr Evra then said that he was going to kick Mr Suarez, to which Mr Suarez told him to
shut up. As Mr Kuyt was approaching, Mr Suarez touched Mr Evra's left arm in a
pinching style movement. According to Mr Suarez, at no point in the goalmouth did he
use the word "negro". When the referee blew his whistle to stop play, Mr Evra spoke to Mr
Suarez and said (in English) "Don't touch me, South American". Mr Suarez replied "Por
que, negro?". He says that he used the word “negro” in a way with which he was familiar
from his upbringing in Uruguay. In this sense, Mr Suarez claimed, it is used as a noun and
as a friendly form of address to people seen as black or brown-skinned (or even just black
haired). Thus, it meant "Why, black?" Mr Suarez maintained that when he said "Por que,
negro?" to Mr Evra, it was intended in a conciliatory and friendly way. Mr Suarez said this
was the only time that he used the word “negro” in his exchanges with Mr Evra during
the match.
Was it wholly inappropriate for Evra to bring Suarez's ethnic origin / nationality into it?
"Don't touch me, South American" seems to have negative connotations about the difference in class or societal level between Europeans and South Americans, labeling them almost as dirty.
This was said in English, a language we all have a greater understanding of the intent and historical context of statements such as this.
Most of us are far more ignorant around the use of a phrase like what Suarez used, in Spanish. Applying our own logic to another language simply doesn't work, nor does applying our own logic to another culture, and I don't think acting as though our culture is more sophisticated is the way to go either. Suggesting education is needed to bring foreign players in line with our culture so they can avoid causing offence is a suggestion layered with a sense of superiority.
The issue is more complicated than people would like to make out, this scenario had many more layers of social context on it than anyone cares to talk about today or at the time, whether in the media or in society. There isn't an easy answer and it is not an easy subject to make conclusions on.
None of this is to excuse Suarez completely, he'd have been better never having said anything but we are where we are and to hang Suarez out to dry and paint Evra as a victim of abuse is overblown in the extreme. I'm really just trying to demonstrate the issue with building an exaggerated narrative around an exchange like this, and laying down judgement based on who does or doesn't take offence, which is not a binary issue either.
Is one person's offence enough to make a statement offensive to the degree of a punishment, or is it a certain proportion of the group involved in the discourse that needs to be offended? How do we judge it when there is an incentive for someone to say they were offended, for example to gain an advantage over a rival?
I don't have the answers to these questions, but they are there and aren't particularly talked about openly when discussing a subject like this.
We can all agree offensive behaviour is something we want to get rid of, but what that entails is highly subjective. Case and point is the Divock Origi banner thread that opened last night and was subsequently locked. Many in there didn't see what was offensive, or disagreed on the degree of offense which some were suggesting. It seems a shame to lock that conversation as people keep saying it is a matter of educating, so having a thread open that can allow a conversation around the subject to take place between our fanbase is probably healthy, to allow people to see where there disagreements lie and understand different stand points.
Without a space to talk about it honestly and openly, I don't see how we are going to improve the situation. Just having a No Room for Racism weekend doesn't help when people have different ideas on what constitutes racism.
