NPR All Things Considered profiles racism in Italy

[alp227]

I was just listening to All Things Considered and heard this piece on "Operation White Christmas" in Italy. That's a campaign against illegal immigration. ATC profiled it as part of a more general story on how racism is rising in Italy. It labels the Northern League Party, which was behind OWC, "anti-immigrant". Other anecdotes from the story included how a group of native Italian children from a Catholic school replaced a group of immigrant children from a public school for a Christmas concert and racist sentiment against a star soccer player for being black. That player (forgot his name) is of Guinean (if I remember correct) descent but was born in Italy and adopted by an Italian couple. (The audio will be posted on NPR at 7PM Eastern, 4PM Pacific.)

To put it in perspective: MTV's new reality show Jersey Shore has generated much controversy among Italian-American advocacy groups because they perceive the show as enforcing negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans. Well, I wonder if those groups will be just as outraged at their own people's bigotry as much as the corporate white American's bigotry. Because the same groups that condemned Jersey Shore might as well be really sympathetic to their immigrant buddies, right?

On edit: Some second thoughts: Besides the general white-supremacist thought of some Italians, I wonder if Italian talk radio is polluted with clones of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, and if the American right-wing publishing houses worked out arrangements to have Michelle Malkin and Pat Buchanan and other anti-immigrant junk from America translated into Italian?

[izquierdista]

1. No need to translate

They have Berlusconi.

[alp227]

2. what's berlusconi gotta do w/racism?

[JI7]

5. make jokes about OBama's "tan"

[LostInAnomie]

3. Europe in general is pretty racist and accepting of racism...

... in comparison to the US. They have been very slow and resistant to intergrate cultures and the influx of African immigrants from Northern Africa has caused a lot of racist tensions to flare.

I know a lot of people like to excoriate the US for it's problems with race relations, but compared to Europe we're the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney.

[grassfed]

4. I was in Italy for half the past year

in a remote part of (supposedly conservative) Sicily and witnessed much warmth between Italians and Africans, Muslims, of all age groups, men and women. There wasn't a trace of racism anywhere, much the opposite.