Argentinos Juniors  1  Godoy Cruz  0

There is no excuse,  no justification for racism but there is often an explanation. Sepp Blatter might do well to come to Argentina to see how far Europe,  especially Britain,  has moved away from the days of monkey chanting,  bananas thrown onto the pitch,  golliwogs,  the Black and White Minstrels and unbelievably bad TV sit-coms like Love Thy Neighbour.

For Argentina in many ways is stuck in a time warp. It’s a long way from everywhere,  except maybe Uruguay and the remoter bits of Paraguay and Bolivia,  which don’t really count. I’m talking major centres of population,  civilization and sophistication here. Places like New York,  London,  Paris and,  dare I say it,  Zurich.

The porteños,  as the residents of Buenos Aires are known,  will tell you that their city is like Paris or Rome,  that they’re as cultivated as the Viennese and the Catalans. In many ways they are. But in plenty of other ways,  they’re not.

I was standing on the terraces at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium when towards the end of the first half the visitors,  Godoy Cruz,  brought on their first substitute,  Armando Cooper.

Armando Cooper

He’s a nifty little player with agile feet and plenty of oomph. He made an immediate impression and it soon became clear to the home fans that if Godoy Cruz were going to get anything from this game,  it would be through Mr Cooper.

What is noticeable about Cooper,  who’s from Panama,  is that he’s black. That’s noticeable because there are very few black players in the Argentine league and none of them are from Argentina since the country hardly has a black population.

What followed from those around me was a barrage of racist vitriol,  spat rather than shouted. Cooper looked like he’d not heard it but Argentinos Juniors has a compact ground with the fans very close to the pitch and he must have heard the words and felt the hatred.

The abuse was varied but unimaginative. I heard someone mention slavery and another shouted something about Kunte Kinte.

If their only cultural reference to Afro-Latin Americans is an over-dramatized and over-simplified 1970s TV series on the African slave trade then I think you get some idea of the depths of ignorance in which we’re wallowing here.

The abuse did not come from all the fans but there were enough of them to be threatening and for it to be apparent that challenging them could result in my being skewered on the sharp bits of the railings that keep us caged in.

It offended my white,  middle-class liberal sensitivities but I was with a French friend,  a black French friend who also heard the abuse. Although none was directed at him and none of those doing the abusing appeared to notice that he might take offence,  he felt the fear and the hatred. That’s what Sepp Blatter doesn’t seem to understand – this is an issue that cannot be solved with a gentleman’s handshake after the game.  

Godoy Cruz in action

It has to be said that the fans will hurl equally vehement insults on a regular basis at the referee and his assistants and the visiting players. It’s nasty enough for me to be grateful that the pitch is ringed by thick metal fences topped with barbed wire. Rabid animals do need to be caged.

If you see black people on the streets of Buenos Aires,  and you can go days without seeing one,  then they are likely to be from Colombia or they’ll be Brazilian or American tourists. Recently,  West African men,  mostly from Senegal,  have set up stalls in the more run-down commercial parts of the city selling  jewelry.

I’ve often heard it said by those modern-day street wise philosophers that we find the world over,  otherwise known as taxi drivers or ignorant idiots,  that Argentines are not racist because ‘we don’t have any blacks.’

There have been books written and several theories put forward as to why that’s the case.

For Argentina,  like every country in the Americas brought in African slaves to work their mines and plantations and once had a substantial black population. Neighbouring Uruguay still has one,  so too does Bolivia.

One theory is that the nineteenth century generals put black men in the front line in their many and vicious wars to eradicate the indigenous communities in central Argentina. Most perished in battle. There’s not much left of Argentina’s indigenous heritage either. Black women were integrated into the population,  at the time expanding rapidly with the influx of European immigrants,  predominantly men from Italy and Spain.

By the turn of the twentieth century Argentina’s black population had pretty much disappeared. But of course the racism remained. It’s all a question of degrees.

Argentina is an immigrant community…from Italy,  Spain,  France,  Croatia,  Greece,  Britain and elsewhere. But it’s a white immigrant population.

With no Afro-Latin Americans to prejudice, the attention turned to darker skinned immigrants of mixed indigenous and European blood from the country’s interior or from Bolivia and Paraguay.

There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants from neighbouring countries in Argentina but they’re kept in their place. The Bolivians sell fruit and veg,  the Paraguayan women are maids and nannies and the men work in construction.

The children at the private schools that dot the neighbourhoods across the north of Buenos Aires are almost exclusively white.

Like I said,  Sepp Blatter should come to Argentina. There are bits of it that are like Europe– the swampy,  rancid smelling parts that he obviously inhabits.

One of those Colombians I mentioned earlier,  Teo Gutierrez,  had a tough weekend too. He was the second Racing Club player to be sent off in their top of the table clash with Boca Juniors. Like so many much-hyped games,  this one ended 0-0.

With just four games to go,  Boca are eight points clear of Racing and have no doubt already booked their party venue.

Independiente beat Olimpo 3-0,  Velez continued their good form with a 3-1 win at Belgrano and Newell’s continued their poor form with a 1-0 home defeat to Tigre. San Martin and All Boys played out a dull 0-0 draw,  Colon beat Rafaela 1-0 and San Lorenzo sacked their manager,  Omar Asad,  after losing 1-0 at home to Union.

Arsenal won 1-0 at Lanus. and the bottom of the table clash between Estudiantes and Banfield was abandoned in the first half,  with Banfield leading 1-0,  after the home fans threw fireworks onto the pitch.