By Ben Nicholson
September 17 – Carlos Treviño, a Mexican politician, who was Secretary of Social Development in Querétaro from 2006-2009, has successfully damaged his hopes as a spokesperson for the people by making racist comments about Ronaldinho via Twitter. Feeling aggrieved about sitting in traffic that was caused by the hysteria surrounding Ronaldinho’s presentation to the fans at his new Mexican club, Quarétero, he expressed his malcontent by referring to Ronaldinho as an ape.
The tweet read, “I try to be tolerant but I DETEST FOOTBALL and the dumbing down phenomenon it produces. I detest it all the more because people obstruct and flood the main avenues, causing me to spend two hours getting home … and all to see AN APE … A Brazilian, but an ape nonetheless. This has become a ridiculous circus.”
Despite being promptly deleted, the tweet was picked up by numerous sources, culminating in global reproach and a Twitter backlash of the trending #TodosSomosSimios, which translates as ‘we are all apes’. Ronaldinho’s new teammate Yasser Corona set the example by accompanying his tweet with a picture of him with a banana.
Queratero FC has issued a response to Treviño, calling for “exemplary punishment” for the remarks. The club wrote, “We call upon the authorities to handle the matter. We as a club will go to the furthest reach of the law so that these types of expressions never affect our players or any member of our club again.
“In our institution we stick to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in its first article ‘All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights.’ They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another”.
Even Treviño’s political party, the right-wing National Action party, has erred regarding the comments, launching an investigation into the matter. There is not much to discover though, and there is substantial backing from the party’s regional chief’s desire to expel Treviño from the party.
Yet it must be conceded that Treviño’s statement alleging that football is guilty of a “dumbing down phenomenon” has some substance to it, evidenced by the damaging effect that it appears to have had on Treviño’s capacity to think.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734838032labto1734838032ofdlr1734838032owedi1734838032sni@n1734838032osloh1734838032cin.n1734838032eb1734838032