That’s just ~a little bit~ racist: after Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka-long’s gold medal victory over Italy’s Filippo Macchi in individual men’s fencing, the Italian Fencing Federation files a complaint with the IOC, accusing the refereeing to be biased because the refs were from Taiwan and South Korea, and had geographical favoritism
Man, not a whole lot to unpack here, but some pretty flagrant racism in the middle of the Olympics going on over here. Italians crying foul and accusing refs of cooking up some home field advantage is wildly ignorant and racist considering the fencer is from Hong Kong, one ref is from Taiwan and the other ref being Korean.
Sure, there is a degree of Asians supporting Asians from time to time, but usually when it’s something where there are very few Asians present in some sort of contest, like Jeremy Lin in the NBA getting a lot of love and admiration from most Asians regardless of race. Not the fucking Olympics, where not only are there a whole bunch of Asians present and participating in all sorts of events, they’re all representing their own cultures in neat little conveniently categorized by country.
Like, Taiwan couldn’t give two shits about Hong Kong. They already exist with tons of beef from the mainland themselves, so they actually have something in common with HK, but a Taiwanese referee isn’t going to put their career on the line and secretly pull for a Hong Konger. And Koreans couldn’t give even lesser of a fuck about Hong Kong. As the kids so eloquently say these days, the fuck on out of here, Italy.
While we’re making sweeping generalizations, let’s go ahead and proclaim that there are few countries that whine and act like sore losers than Italy does. Lose to a Chinaman in fencing? Obviously racist and biased refereeing. Angela Carini takes a punch and throws in the towel? Clearly her opponent was a dude (read: she wasn’t), and drag her entire name and reputation into the mud before being proven wrong.
It’s even worse in futbol, where Italians have demonstrated a laundry list of bad behavior and reactions in the name of defeat, like fans throwing fireworks onto the field, pelting opposing players with dangerous projectiles. In 2002, the Korean player who headed in the game-winning goal that sent Italy packing in the World Cup who happened to play for an Italian club, was cut almost immediately afterward.
But this recent episode isn’t just sore losing, it’s just straight up racist. Ignorant, reckless and completely idiotic racism, that I had to stop and actually process just how dumb it was after hearing about it, because I almost couldn’t believe that there were people in positions capable of having direct lines with the IOC, being so juvenile and flagrant with their accusations.
Haven’t Koreans already had enough bullshit already during this Olympics? Getting announced as the wrong country first was pretty bad, but now getting dragged into this pitiful Italy tirade is pretty bad too.
Props to Pizza Hut HK though, for sticking it to Italian culture by offering up free pineapple on pizza for the next 24 hrs. I really wish Domino’s in Korea would do the same thing in solidarity and retaliation for Italy’s bullshit. Kind of makes me want to go out and get some pizza with pineapple on it myself, but I think I’ll have to keep that want in my back pocket for the next time pizza is a possibility.
