What some Argentines still don’t understand about racism in Brazil

On Friday (20), Argentine player Candela Díaz, 25 years old, imitated a monkey for the Grêmio players, during a match at Estádio do Canindé, in São Paulo. She and five other players were expelled from the field and the game was ended early. Candela’s gestures were recorded by cameras. The other players also allegedly made racist insults. They deny it.

The misconduct led to four of the players, including Candela, being arrested red-handed. The São Paulo Public Security Secretariat informed the Brazilian press that the case was registered as “racial insult”. The River Plate football club filed a habeas corpus requesting the release of the women’s team players and announced, on its social networks, that the athletes must comply with “disciplinary measures” before returning to the field. Speaking to Clarín in Spanish, River authorities said they consider the punishment “exaggerated”, but that the players’ acts of racism are “repudiable”. Grêmio, in turn, denounced them in court. On Monday (23), they remained prisoners.

This was at least the third public episode of racism committed by Argentines in Brazil this year. Last month, the Racial Crimes and Offenses of Intolerance Police Station (Decradi) indicted Argentine teacher Carolina de Palma, who lives in Buenos Aires, and Brazilian teacher Thiago Martins Maranhão, who lives in São Paulo, for racism. The two, music teachers, were filmed imitating monkeys during a samba circle in Rio de Janeiro.

“We concluded that there was racial discrimination at the event. The dance imitating monkeys refers to historical racism, a comparison that is made between animals and black people, in the sense of dehumanizing them”, said delegate Rita Salim, head of Decradi. The penalty for the crime is 3 to 5 years in prison. Thiago and Carolina claimed that they imitated other animals during the samba circle and that their gestures had no racist intention.

In August this year, two fans of Argentine Belgrano were detained after being accused of racism during a game with Atlético Paranaense in the Copa Sudamericana, in Brazil. Last year, an Argentine woman was detained during a game between the Brazilian and Argentine teams at Maracanã, in Rio de Janeiro, after racist insults against a street vendor there. Stories repeat themselves. And it’s not today.

Recently, before a match between teams from Brazil and Argentina, Brazil’s ambassador in Buenos Aires, Julio Bitelli, posted on the Embassy’s social media that racist acts, including chanting, would not be tolerated. Racism is a crime in Brazil.

But many Argentines still insist on ignoring it. The two countries have very different histories. However, so many years after living in democratic times, it is still surprising that young people like Candela Díaz, 25, are still caught with gestures of racial segregation.