Pablo Matera to fight for the survival of his International career?

[unrated]

Argentina dump rugby captain Matera after xenophobic tweets resurface
Argentina dump rugby captain Matera after xenophobic tweets resurface https://www.news24.com/sport/rugby/...ra-after-xenophobic-tweets-resurface-20201201


So I see Argentina has removed him as the captain and suspended him with two other players

Apparently this was his tweets translated.

"Beautiful morning to go out in the car and run over some n***"

"The hatred towards Paraguayans, Bolivians, etc, stems from that maid who lost a hair in your food"

"South Africa baby! At last I'm leaving this country full of blacks...ouch!"

"I'm going to shave the maid's hair, ****"


Now I have heard that the term negro in South America in some quarters can be seen as endearing rather than as intent to offend. I mean you can't get away from the part where be says he wants to run them over but from what I understand they say In South America it's more Classist than Racists as the Argentinean rugby players is part of the elite economy wise of their society. That they just use the term to mock "poorer citizens or migrants from neighbouring countries" instead of as a race based derogatory term.
I'm not stating it as fact I'm cautiously trying to dissect the context. Argentinian people can correct me, or help educate if I'm off the mark.

This Cavani sorry linked below also states that the term negro is used a a term of endearment

Cavani apologises for misunderstood social media post
Cavani apologises for misunderstood social media post https://www.news24.com/sport/Soccer...-for-misunderstood-social-media-post-20201130


"The message I posted after the match on Sunday was intended as an affectionate greeting to a friend, thanking him for his congratulations after the game," Cavani said in a statement.

"The last thing I wanted to do was cause offence to anyone. I am completely opposed to racism and deleted the message as soon as it was explained that it can be interpreted differently. I would like to sincerely apologise for this."

So he is in the public eye and did not delete twitter posts he made as a teenager. Is his international career over? Will it quickly blow over? Thoughts?

 

[unrated]

So I was trying to get some translations of his tweets on some other forums, and some poster explained the following.


(Start quote)

In Argentina the word "negro" isn't really a racist term, it is classist term. Negro is a word for poor people, and it derives (iirc) from something Peron said ("cabezitas negras") which isnt adressing race.

Also, 2011/12 Argentine twitter was literally a competition of who was a worse person, they were all 16/17 then just (very) stupid teenagers tweeting stupid things for their equally stupid friends. (End quote)

So what I'm understanding is that he was wrong, he was a teenager, he should have deleted them much sooner once he grew up. He is now in the public eye and got caught out.


I want to know what does the Argentinian posters think should be the appropriate punishment.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

those are pretty bad, they may think they are using the word in a different sense....but it has an original meaning...and it aint just poor people

 

[TheOvalBall]

The word negro just means dark. It's ridiculous to me that it is offensive, unless it's cultural appropriation which is also baffling.

 

[McTallshort]

Bloody hell. Hero to zero

 

[Umaga's Witness]

It was intended in a derogatory, discriminatory manner. That seems clear. A question perhaps of what group he is discriminating against, but it's still discrimination.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

So, incredibly indefensible. What a ****.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Argentinian people can correct me, or help educate if I'm off the mark.

I think you are quite accurate. It's mostly used in the social/economic sense but I'm pretty sure the origin was race-related at some point, thou not now.


Regarding Cavani's incident, it is very difficult for me to explain it without coming across as biased. Having said that, I've spent enough time abroad sharing houses, work and friendships with people from all over the place in order to understand what is faux pas and what is just a misunderstanding. Cavani's case is 100% a misunderstanding. There is not even an iota of intent to harm anyone in his post.
I'm actually against Cavani issuing any sort of apology about this. He did absolutely nothing wrong and i would hate to see him cave on this.


Regarding Matera & Co, it is bad. What I'm missing here is UAR's apology. They are putting all the blame on Matera and while he deserves a huge part of it, someone with authority should have done his/her due diligence. This wasn't some minute encrypted message in the bottom of the internet, but a public tweet for anyone to see. They could have checked, they should have checked, and they did not.
I am afraid they will throw the players under the bass as a way to compensate for their own mistakes.

A fake Matera account on twitter started an interesting experiment: they listed every journalist, politician and celebrity who asked for Matera's head and started their own due diligence of their background regarding any politically incorrect post. The idea is not to exonerate Matera but to expose the hypocrisy some of those asking for his head.
Hardly anyone resists an archive.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

I don't want to derail the subject but i think some context is important.

The main group of people who are (rightly) spearheading the criticism towards Matera are the same people, the exact same people that looked the other way when

- The current president telling a woman on tweeter to stop arguing nonsense with him and go to the kitchen
- a video of Maradona hitting his girlfriend became public
- When the now vice president and former two terms president tweeted a joke about Chinese people (substituting "r"s for "l"s).

Nothing, not a single character of this would have surfaced had the Pumas honoured Maradona in a way that was deemed appropriate by the people pointing fingers. Sad, pathetic actually, but true.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Shocking tweets no defence.
It doesn't matter the past of the people who are calling him out nor does it change the tweets.


But they were also from 9-7 years ago.
So Matera would be 18-20
Petti would be 17-19
Socino would be 19-21

I do believe that people especially from around that age can change and I do not believe it 100% means they still have that same feeling, nor do I feel that it should mean his international career is gone. (Granted if it's found these views are still held then.....),
BUT especially Matera it would be impossible to keep him as captain.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

So people go witch-hunting and find 10-year-old tweets to serve their purpose, but their purpose is not relevant?
Nah, you don't get it. It wouldn't change the tweets but it would change the attention and the timing.

You dont understand the context here. It has very, very little to do with rugby.
They are using this (which is terrible and should be punished) as a way to punish him for something else.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Nah you don't get it.
I also understand what you are trying to say, I also understand that Argentina has a very deep cultural problem with Rugby v Football, deeper than here in the UK and people are using the Maradona thing as an excuse to target the "Elitist" Rugby community to score points.

BUT the context of why people are digging up these tweets are not as worse as the tweets.
If the tweets wasn't as bad as they are it wouldn't be a issue.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

BUT the context of why people are digging up these tweets are not as worse as the tweets.

Hahah. How the **** would you know?
Stop embarrassing yourself. You really have no idea what you are taking about.

If the tweets wasn't as bad as they are it wouldn't be a issue.

Never said they weren't bad. They are beyond bad.
The question you are not asking yourself, precisely because you don't understand the issues here, is how such bad tweets went undetected for nearly 10 years.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

OK here is what I believed happened.
The Argentine rugby community and the Lower class football community are not on the best of terms (From what I gather that's a big understatement).
When Maradona (Who was seen as a man of the people, with indigenous and Italian blood brought up in poverty who rose to become a legend) died, the reality was nothing the UAR did was most likely going to be good enough for the people.
So people do what people do look for a figurehead of a group and find dirt. (a tactic from the right that had recently used on James Gunn that had gotten him fired from Marvel and one that it is so regularly used I don't know why anyone would keep their account that is more than a few years old)
People then jump on board too score various political/view points.

What else am I missing?
Yes they didn't call out others for different stuff but it's just whataboutisms it still doesn't change the tweets.


The tweets most likely didn't get detected in the last 10 years because
1. If the UAR is like the RFU they know as much about technology as a grandparent.
2. Matera recently gain stardom with his impressive leadership skills v the All Blacks, to the point no other Argentine player has really had before.
3. Maradona death was a catalyst for people to look for those they deemed as not paying enough respects to.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

I've got pretty limited sympathy for him, he probably posted from a smart phone (ie all of human knowledge at his finger tips) in 2012...not the 60s or something, very little grounds on which to claim some sort of ignorance to what he was saying

and I don't see how others having an agenda are any kind of mitigation...he said what he said

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Remember when Dallaglio lost the England captaincy for a cocaine sting by a journalist. And his international career survived.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

O'Gara had a "massive gambling problem" during the 07 world cup, I'm pretty sure the source was him saying he liked horse racing in a programme of a u18 game he played 10 years prior. Journalists sit on these things and release them when the spotlight is on the target, it's nothing new and doesn't exonerate anyone.

 

[Groundhog]

You don't want your dodgy tweets from when you are 18 dragged up for political point scoring? Simple, don't hold these views in the first place, don't tweet them and when you've inevitably grown up a huge amount 8 years later as I'm sure Matera to his credit has and you are captaining your country on an international stage, at least delete the tweets. Matera shouldn't have his entire career ended because of what he tweeted when he was 17/18, but he's also not the victim here.

 

[TheOvalBall]

There are just nasty people out there to destroy careers of people in the public eye.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

You don't want your dodgy tweets from when you are 18 dragged up for political point scoring? Simple, don't hold these views in the first place, don't tweet them and when you've inevitably grown up a huge amount 8 years later as I'm sure Matera to his credit has and you are captaining your country on an international stage, at least delete the tweets. Matera shouldn't have his entire career ended because of what he tweeted when he was 17/18, but he's also not the victim here.

This is what I don't get,
There are people more outraged about the dragging up of the tweets than the tweets themselves.

Maybe.....don't be racist at any age?