Donald Sterling and his racist remarks were not the only instance of racism in sports this weekend. Across the pond, Barcelona defender Dani Alves experienced racism first hand, when a fan threw a banana at his feet as he was prepping a second half corner.
Alves responded with pure class, actually picking the banana up, peeling it and then eating it before he sent his service into the box. Here’s the video if you missed it:
As you can see Alves didn’t miss a beat, and Barcelona even came back to beat Villareal 3-2. After the game Alves said, "We have suffered this in Spain for some time. You have to take it with a dose of humour. We aren't going to change things easily. If you don't give it importance, they don't achieve their objective."
Alves isn’t a stranger to racist taunts, as he also experienced abuse from Real Madrid fans who barraged him with monkey chants during a match. Alves said after that incident that fighting racism in stadiums was “a lost war."
Alves received immense amounts of support all over social media after the incident. Check it out:
SOMOS TODOS IGUAIS, SOMOS TODOS MACACOS. RACISMO NÃO!!!!! We are all monkeys, we are all the same.Say… http://t.co/u8M5led0WH
— Neymar Júnior (@neymarjr) April 27, 2014
Nach #Alves-Vorfall:“@aguerosergiokun: With my colleague Marta from Brazil we say #NoToRacism. We are all equal. pic.twitter.com/qcFmkeb6eO”
— Finn Clausen (@Finn_Clausen) April 28, 2014
— Philipe Coutinho (@Phil_Coutinho) April 28, 2014
What @DaniAlvesD2 tolerated last night is an outrage. We must fight all forms of discrimination united. Will be zero tolerance at #WorldCup.
— Joseph S Blatter (@SeppBlatter) April 28, 2014
