‘Argentina is not a Disney movie’: who said that about black footballers?

Sparked a debate about the race of the players

Debates about the Argentina team, especially about its racial homogeneity, boiled over on Sunday evening, just as the championship finals began.

As is known, they include Argentines challenged to the reigning world champion France. The main time of the match ended peacefully – 2:2, after added time the situation changed little – 3:3.

The winners were determined only after a penalty shoot-out, which Argentina won 4-2 to lift the Champions Cup after a 36-year hiatus.

As soon as the final started, a post about football appeared on the Facebook account of jeweler Jurga Lago. At first, she only posted a picture of the captain of the future winners, Lionel Messi, with the small comment “Accidentally landed on my FB somehow. Oh.”

Soon he clarified: “on my FB wall”, then once more: “Accidentally, somehow it fell on my FB wall. Argentina.” A few minutes later, the epithet “intolerant Argentina” appeared.

After about half an hour, J.Lago changed his post entirely: “I read somewhere: when the Argentina national team was asked why they have so few black players, their answer was: ‘We are a country, not a Disney cartoon.'” This match is in a way symbolic.”

Already late in the evening, the jeweler inserted a request: “Just don’t start all kinds of interpretations about racism-feminism, because the message is not about people, but about blunt ideologies. Quota and selection by gender, etc.”

But during that time, the comments, whose post received more than 150, turned into a discussion about the racial composition of the Argentina and France teams, and insults were poured.

Everyone in the Argentine national team 26 playersalthough of lighter or darker complexion, were white-skinned.

In the French team that reached the final of this championship, from 21 players less than half were white. Having scored both goals in the main time and scored the third goal in overtime in a few minutes Kylian Mbappewho celebrates his 24th birthday on Tuesday, was born in Paris to Cameroonian and Algerian parents.

“After this phrase (about the film – ed. post.), I am even less in favor of the Argentine team. And not because I’m very pro-French,” one woman wrote under J.Lago’s post.

However, the majority sided with the Latin Americans, explained that the teams should be “purer” from a racial point of view, urged them to sing in Lithuanian at international competitions, and to form our country’s teams from Lithuanians.

“I don’t like Africanized teams, but I like African national teams,” explained another football fan. – I wouldn’t like it if some Englishmen played there. Then what would be the point of the world championships?… To mess up and mix everything up to make it easier to manage is the dream of the globalists.”

Photos of two French national teams – 1986 and 2022 – also appeared in the comments. The first shows only white people, the second shows mostly black people. Underneath the collage was the snide comment: “Don’t pretend climate change doesn’t exist.”

The answer is not from the team, but from the radicals

Several commenters posted an image below J.Lago’s post showing her quoted phrase about the video. He also appeared during the final in this Telegram channel.

“Argentina has responded brilliantly to accusations that its national football team has few black players: ‘We are a country, not a Disney cartoon.’

The picture consists of a photo of Argentines walking onto the field, above it is written the question why Argentina do not have more black players in the World Cup, below – a quoted answer about the film.

It was also shared by https://twitter.com/DamianoOppici/status/1604555717784240128.

As you can understand, this question was asked by The Washington Post. Tiesmuka gave a straight answer La Libertad Avanza – a right-wing or even extreme right-wing political coalition in Argentina that adheres to conservative views on social and cultural issues and libertarian views on economic issues.

After entering the same English phrase “we are a country, not a Disney movie” in the Internet search box, first of all thrown away link to La Libertad Avanza record on Twitter. It features the same photo and phrase, as well as a link to an article in The Washington Post whose title raises the question about black players.

The historian calculated

“As fans witness Argentina’s success at this year’s World Cup, the familiar question arises: why aren’t there more black players in Argentina’s national team? – yes your text in the newspaper started by an associate professor at the University of Texas Dr. Erika Denise Edwards. “The Argentine national football team, compared to other South American countries such as Brazil, has a very poor number of black representatives.”

The Latin American history expert recalled the jokes during the 2014 championship that even the German national football team had at least one black player, while the Argentine national team had none in that year’s finals.

in 2010 According to published census data, there were 149,493 blacks in Argentina, a significant number less than 1 percent population. To many, this data seemed to confirm that Argentina is indeed a nation of whites.

EDEdwards recalled that during the Argentine colonial period on the banks of the Rio de la Plata river disembarked approximately 200 thousand captives from Africa. 18th century at the end, already a third of the population were black.

“The idea of ​​Argentina as a white nation is not only inaccurate, but also clearly speaks to a longer history of black erasure that is at the core of the country’s self-definition,” the historian noted.

She went on to list several myths that purport to explain the absence of black Argentines. For example, many blacks supposedly died in the wars of independence, their numbers were declining due to various disease outbreaks and simply high mortality.

“Actually, Argentina has had many black people for centuries, not only the enslaved and their descendants, but also immigrants. <�…> But Argentina’s white leaders were creating a different narrative to erase blacks because they equated modernity with whiteness,” EDEdwards wrote.

A comment with the subtitle “Argentina is much more diverse than many people think, but the myth that it is a white nation still lives”, published on December 8, caused quite a stir.

Because the historian allegedly overestimated the size of the black group in Argentine society. The text soon had to be corrected (it also received US media attention) – to specify that they make up significantly less than 1 percent, as originally indicated.

The said census data, in Argentina lived just over 40 million of people, so blacks (their number was specified exactly in the comment) accounted for 0.37 percent. Last year, 45.8 million people lived in the country. people, shows Statistics published by the World Bank.

The publication was prepared in 15 minutes in partnership with Metawhich aims to stop the spread of misleading news on the social network. More about the program and its rules – here.