Re: I'm with you on this - I don't think she wanted them to be bitten. - Edit 1
Before modification by DomA at 27/07/2012 09:39:54 PM
It's still racist obviously, but not racist AND malevolent. To the extent racism can ever be non-malevolent, that is.
Hmmm... I'm not sure I agree it's racist. It's xenophobic.
I tend to agree she didn't meant it to be malevolent - I don't think she seriously thought Nile mosquitoes that everyone knows carry a deadly disease, would prefer to bite North Africans over Greeks. But that's still what the joke was - there's not a hundred ways to understand the joke: Nile mosquitoes might favour north african immigrants "from home" and thus satiated on "food from home" might spare Greek natives of the risk of a deadly disease and that's one good thing about having so many african immigrants in the country: to be food for deadly mosquitoes.
It's clearly xenophobic, if her xenophobia is fed on racism (it's probably given that she's apparently a Golden Dawn supporter) the joke itself doesn't say.
Then it's all about how tolerant someone is or isn't of that kind of edgy humour, and how tolerant one should be when an athlete who is supposed to uphold values of fraternity between nations, respect for all races and cultures publicly makes such a xenophobic joke.
My greek neighbours all seem to agree with the decision, though admitedly they're all the kind that if you mention the Golden Dawn you're up for a ten minutes rant about "fucking neo-nazis" in a mix of French and English peppered with tons of swearing in Greek (and you get something similar if you mention the extreme left.. not all too fond or approving of their homeland my neighbours these days!)