Emo And Dumb

Remember when the United Nations put out a vote to recognise the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity and only three countries voted against it? Those countries being The US, Israel and Argentina?

Sorry, this is about football.

Remember when Maradona openly talked on TV about how Argentina roofied water bottles to give out to Brasilian players in the Turin World Cup of 1990, and one of the staff did give a Brasilian player a bottle and he felt faint on the field?

Oh but that's too long ago, my bad. Remember these from last WC?

Zero cards given for those three, btw.

Oh, and what about this cup?

And just last night, from the lovely fans of the lovely team

Do we want to speak on what Bolsonaro said about black people for years and how many people still support him in Brasil?

I dont care about futbol. You can see in the blog how i dont want Argentina to win because i dont like them as a team anymore for politics. Because i can see it and i fucking hate it. But i cant sit here and let you guys pretend that Argentina is the only one with dirt when every latinoamerican country has racist, xenophobic, transphobic, antiblack, homophobic people. Making Argentina the only villian is just a scapegoat tactic to avoid awknowledging the issues of every country. You want to pick a side more than fix the damn issues.

Sure, maybe what we're receiving outside of Argentina is only the top percentile of the worst of the worst, but there's still a reason why for decades the overall fame of Argentinians to the rest of Latin America, even when completely isolated from external influences (I'm talking personal interactions and real life experiences) is 'the Europeans of South America'. My entire life I've always heard, and I know this is a common experience for Latines all over the world, that Argentinians consider themselves Europeans and don't consider themselves Latines like the rest of Latam. This is not from propaganda, this is from people that have traveled to Argentina, and people from Argentina that travel here. And yeah, we can even have a conversation about who considers themselves Latines or not, a lot of Brasilians do not consider themselves Latines, not due to thinking we're European, or 'wanting to be European' like some said in this post (although sure there are a lot of those too, unfortunately) but due to feeling othered or left out for not sharing the language like the rest of Latam, so they consider themselves simply Brasilian.

Bolsonaro was a terrible president and is an overall a bad person and yeah, there's still a lot of people who still support him, but get this: currently he is not the president, currently he is serving time for his crimes. CURRENTLY no one over here who's against him when hearing how bad he is says 'well, he's bad but other countries also have bad people too' that's not the slay you think it is. How hard is it to own up to your country's mistakes? I know that a lot of Brasilians are right wing and racist and homophobic and all that which wasn't even in question for your gotcha, but MOST of us don't deny that these things exist here. We don't go around saying we're not a racist country, or that racism doesn't exist or 'but other countries also are racist', in fact, we made racism a crime that puts you in jail, and the reason why it is a crime is because it NEEDS TO BE A CRIME, because we do have a big problem with racism over here. I don't need to point fingers when accused/when my country is accused, to dissuade my guilt and lower the weight, because yes, we have a gigantic problem with these things, we own up to it. At least those of us that want to be better.

And it was a post about the world cup, so yeah I talked about world cup situations that represent why I will never cheer for Argentina. And I limited it to a handful of world cup situations where all except one the TEAM (with FIFA backing also) presented deplorable and unsportsmanlike behaviour. These are some reasons why people currently don't want to support the Argentina team. Never said YOU are cheering for the country or doing these things, but the post was "it's lame that latinos don't want to cheer for Argentina/are saying they'll cheer for Europe" and I listed reasons as to why people are against Argentina in the cup.

Considering being Brasilian I could have pulled dozens and dozens of situations outside of the world cup (copa america, sulamericano, libertadores, etc, even european competitions cuz it reaches all the way there) where Brasilian players have been the target of racism directly from Argentina in some way. Whether it be playing in Argentina, playing against Argentina, playing against Argentinian teams, even Argentinian individual players; from players and fans alike. Most recently, or at least most famously recently, Vini Jr in February during a Champions League game was called a monkey in the field by Argentinian player Prestianni (who, mind you, plays for a Portuguese team, guy went all over to Europe to be racist). You want to talk about patterns? Now I will NEVER say that it is only Argentinian players or fans that are racist, that would be insane of me, I'm not blind. But there is, unfortunately, a CONSIDERABLE amount of instances where these attacks came from Argentina.

And if we are talking history and football, which we are, HISTORICALLY IN FOOTBALL, Brasil and Argentina have had the biggest rivalry at least in the Americas since the 1920s (if you want to look truly into it outside of football sure there are geopolitical and historical reasons for it all that are more to do with both countries trying to consolidate themselves as the leading south american power than the US pitting us against each other, but most brasilians don't care about the politics of it only the football). Brasilians only do two things during the world cup, and that is: 1 - cheer for Brasil; 2 - cheer against Argentina. So to be mad at a Brasilian for stating they're against Argentina is as nonsensical as being mad at Tom for being against Jerry. We have never needed any right wing propaganda, for Brasilians, when it comes to football, when it comes to the world cup, Argentina has always been the main villain (it was the only villain until that 7x1). We're not scapegoating, we're not just now creating a villain to avoid anything, this is our narrative, our history, for over 100 years now, and it will continue to be way after the world cup ends, and into the next one and the one after that and so on and so forth.

Now personally, I enjoy football and I enjoy the world cup, and I like to experience this event when it comes around, and I like to watch as many games as I can, and I have always decided on a team to cheer for at each game based on different criteria over the years, regardless of criteria, one thing has always been unchanged and that is that Argentina is the one I want to lose the most, the very bottom of my list. I will cheer against every coloniser and against every country that has wronged us and against countries that have history of being shit or with players that are dicks, but all bets are off when Argentina steps on the field, because honestly, the day I cheer for Argentina is the day I renounce my citizenship. (Unless it's like the US or Portugal, then I'll just hate regardless and cheer for them all to get fucked).

And finally and most importantly, you don't have to read anything else I've said up until here, but just know this: no hard feelings to any individual person, but as a Brasilian from a coastal city that gets a lot of Argentinian tourists in the summer, I have never in my life needed Europe or the US or the fucking Pope to tell me how to feel about Argentina, because Argentinians have always done a phenomenal job on their own.

What I don't understand is why you ask people not to generalize Brasil while constantly generalizing Argentina.

You say your experiences with argentine tourists don't represent the whole population, but then you use football incidents, online behavior and historical controversies to justify judging the country as a whole. That's the double standard.

If brazilians shouldn't be reduced to Bolsonaro, racist fans or violent incidents because Brasil is more complex than that, then argentinians shouldn't be reduced to racist chants, internet clips or an unproven allegation from 1990 either. Either individuals represent themselves, or they represent their countries. The standard should be the same for everyone!