From: David L. Evans [Harvard FAS]
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 5:04 PM
To: Gregg, Perry
Subject: Taunting of Black Soccer Players
Dear Perry,
With increasing frequency I have read about the racist taunting of African and African-descended soccer players at games in Europe. This is often (but not always) the work of traveling bands of thugs and it sometimes includes physical assault. Even more, it is done with relative impunity.
After reading a detailed article last Sunday about the upcoming World Cup competition in Germany and how black soccer players had been harassed in that country, I was fed up.
Maybe it is time for the greater world to hold the hosting countries responsible for this barbarity as we did Southern segregationists and South Africa for its apartheid policy. I expressed this view in a letter that is published in the Sports Section of today's New York Times (see below).
Best regards,
David
The New York Times
June 11, 2006
Letters to the Editor
Accountable to the World
To the Sports Editor:
Re "Surge in Racist Mood Raises Concerns on Eve of World Cup" (June 4): When Jim Crow laws existed in parts of this country and black citizens were set upon by racist hooligans, pickets often greeted officials from those regions when they traveled.
Moreover, companies doing business in those areas and their products were boycotted. Those tactics were effective, as were similar actions taken against South Africa during the era of apartheid.
Perhaps countries that are unable to quell egregious racist violence and major sponsors of events where patterns of violence persist should be reminded that they, too, are accountable to the world.
David L. Evans
Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company