Simmonds Target of Racism in Czech league game
 

Zvirata (animals) !

morons

retard(s) - to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment : impede - in this case the Czech folk.

Yes, there was a thread about this earlier in the day in the general NHL area (got locked for politics after a while).

Ridiculous situation

Were there bananas involved?

Shame this crap always seems to happen with Simmonds.

I never thought this kind of behavior would happen in Europe. What with how evolved and worldly they are. I thought racism was mainly an American thing. I mean - over here we eat popcorn and in Europe that's animal feed.

Wow, really? Racist an American thing? Man, Europe is EXTREMELY racist, especially Eastern Europe... this doesn't surprise me in the least. Soccer fans over there can't WAIT for a non-caucasian player to make a mistake so they can taunt them endlessly. Russia is probably the worst.

Sometimes you here Americans talk about other races as being below them, even though they don't honestly believe it from a skin perspective, mostly through stereotype ... but in Europe, they actually believe it.

Pens fan here. And if there's one thing that can unite Pens and Flyers fans, it's disgust with racist idiots.

What a bunch of ignorant tools.

Gert I think was being sarcastic....

Yeah it is known that in Europe there is some extreme racism (xenophobia) and rising due to the economic problems ...the soccer matches are just the tip of the iceberg. I was in Italy this past month and they are not taking too kindly to the increasing emigration of North Africans...not to mention Filipinos etc etc.

I hate Pens fans of all color, creed and sexual orientation. In that respect I am an equal opportunity hater of all Pens fans. Except the ones that are friends of mine of course.

Snots flew out of my nose after reading this. Gotta love a cold.

They do this all the time with soccer players

Yeah, but you have to realize those fans are not representative of a general population, and you can't generalize Europeans are more racist than people in the US or Canada. The fan culture over there is much more intense, emotional and involved as it is here, and one of the reasons you get these outbursts is due to herd mentality. If you had such a fan culture over here, I'm willing to bet the same thing would happen, except they'd maybe pick on some other personal trait that's not as common here and not on race.

What I found is also that often the nucleus of these fan groups is composed of very intense, violent and by extension racist people, although I think it has more to do with them hating everyone that isn't them, and race is just something they pick on because it's available at the moment. Then you pair those guys up with other people, often teenagers, and you get incidents like that. That doesn't, of course, make it better, but I'm just trying to provide a bit of background on why this happens, and one which isn't necessarily tied to Europeans or Czechs in this instance being more racist than the Americans. The situation changes the whole thing and you can't isolate their behaviour and take it outside of it.

Just so no one gets me wrong, though, I do disapprove of racist crap like that.

That was not racism, that was just a way to insult opponent's player. And it happens at every game. They didn't call him monkey because of his race, it was because they wanted to insult a player of Liberec. For his jersey, not skin.

No, that was racist. If he were white, would they have said the same thing?

I'll try to explain. If this was racism, I believe they'd call him a monkey right after he appeared on the ice, which didn't happen. It happened when he did something other team's fans didn't like (got into fight in this case). I'll give you an example. There is a fotballer, pretty big name in the czech league, which is called the squirrel when fans want to punish him for something they didn't like. But it's obvious they are not doing it because they hate people with big teeth, which he has. Just as these fans said it because they wanted to punish Simmonds for something, not because they hate black people.

But they are still picking on his big teeth.

In Simmonds case they are picking on his skin color.

That's racist.

You may be right. That depends on the definition of racism we are thinking of. Personally I don't think this chant is a good thing to do, I'm just saying this most likely was caused by hate towards something he did, not towards his skin colour.

Can't even begin to imagine the crap that this kid has endured is his young life time. Awful. I love the kid a great Flyer for sure

from what i heard (and read)

Most of the stadium started whistling immediately after a small group at the stadium started shouting this and most people disapproved of the shouting.
And to be honest, i have no idea why would you call a black guy monkey. What makes a black guy more "monkeyish" than a white guy?

The whole affair is a pretty big deal in czech media, but in my opinion, everyone is little too sensitive. It's just words of few (most likely drunk) idiots at a hockey game

I am sure simmer is day to day with hurt feelings :D the guy is a tough dirty goal scorer, there are very few guys like him, hopefully i find the time to see him play on european ice, can't wait for nhl to start though

It's caused by anger at his actions, yes. However, they decided to focus on his skin color to get their form of revenge.

http://data.whicdn.com/images/337339..._500_thumb.jpg

"Oh, yeah? Well I slept with your wife!"


- To pick on his race because you disagree with his play is like shooting someone because they busted your nuggets a little bit.

This is terrible. Whyyyyyyy?!?!?!
TOLLLLLLLLERANCE!

Racism does not require hate, it can stem from ignorance, fear, influence, etc... Whatever the cause it is still racism, saying it is not racist due to his actions is irrelevant. Using a racist insult against someone to support your hate towards them, whatever your reason may be, is still racist.

My thought with the monkey thing is that people associate monkeys with Africa. Or maybe that they're associating black people as lower forms of evolution? I think those two make the most sense.