Racism is a big issue in Europe, but people don't talk about it a lot. But on the Internet people dare to speak freely. The experienceproject.com has a forum topic called ‘I experienced Racism’. Anonymous blogger ‘Nightcrawler' tells that old ladies get scared when he passes by : ‘I am 18 years old, parents from Eritrea but I live in Holland. I often see old ladies grab their bag and white racist people probably don’t think we notice, but I can smell racism from a mile away. But its something we need to learn to live with. I had a conversation once with a teacher of mine, she actually thought racism was dead nowadays. I just told her to walk in my shoes for a day and she would find out that its not.’
Racism in football
If there’s one place where racism is definitely not dead, it’s in football. Abedi Pele, a former Ghanaian international football player, describes on Afrik-news.com what he had to go through at his club Marseilles in the 1980's: "When I played international football, people threw oranges and bananas at us. Whoever thinks this is something from the past should think again. Throwing fruit or other things on the pitch can cost clubs money, but name calling, booing black players and producing monkey sounds is still very common in the world of European football."
In 2006, Samuel Eto'o, a succesful football player from Cameroon, played a match for Barcelona in the Spanish league, and almost walked off the pitch after being taunted by supporters with racist chants. Eto’o now plays for Internazionale in Italy, and it is not much better there. As a result of the ongoing racism, Eto’o told ESPN that he has stopped taking family members to matches: "It is something that has affected me personally. I think players, leaders, and the media have to join forces so that no one feels looked down upon because of the color of their skin. At this moment in time I prefer my children don't go to football matches. In the stands they have to listen to things that are difficult to explain to a child. It is better they aren't exposed to it."
Longing for home
Monkey sounds produced by supporters from his own club made Lyon defender John Mensa from Ghana long for home. He tells Equipe: "It ruined my career. After hearing their voices I only wanted to do one thing, to go home to my own country, Ghana, and to forget all this." John Nkebi doesn’t want to leave Köln, but the beating was a depressing experience for him: "It makes me sad that there are people who are just waiting for a black guy to do something, so that they can go out and hit him."
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