Italian soccer team walks out of a game after racist chants (video, article)
AC Milan vs. a lower-division team.
Quote:
Video of the incident, which took place in the small stadium of Pro Patria, a club in one of Italy’s lower leagues, showed Kevin-Prince Boateng, a Ghanaian-German midfielder for the visitors, A.C. Milan, stopping play and launching the ball in the direction of fans of the home team who were chanting like monkeys. He then pulled off his shirt and walked to the locker room, followed by his teammates.
Extended story here, with plenty of info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXyqFZ_fghI
(direct link to YouTube)
To adapt one of my favorite movie quotes: "I wish I could tell you that the racist chanting was a rare occurrence, and this was an anomaly. I wish I could tell you that, but soccer is no fairy-tale world."
Another reminder of how some racist/neo-fascist groups rally around soccer there; can't say there's a similar problem in the US professional or top-level college leagues. The closest thing I can think of were the issues Ole Miss had in it's mix of Confederate imagery and college football, but it wasn't racist to opposing players and its own issues died off for the most part by the 1990s (to the point where there was a serious movement to change the name of the mascot to Admiral Ackbar).
Part of it is the problem of history: The US is a melting pot, forcing everyone together over a much shorter period of time (hundreds of years vs. thousands). Outside of the Native Americans (who got the raw deal), people have to deal with each other. And while you'll still see lingering nativist sentiment (nowadays towards illegal immigration, and in some corners more than a little tinged with racism), it's a different sense than in Europe where folks have lingered in the same area for a thousand years. I've still heard otherwise "enlightened", college educated Europeans tell me with a straight face that they're suspicious of Jews and have low opinions of brown people as people. Hell, Obama was the trump card: I'd love to see if a European country can elect a black president or prime minister, let alone re-elect them.