It's all fun and games 'til someone gets racist on Twitter...

[renee shah]

Özil reports Twitter user for racial abuse

PEPE ÍÑIGUEZ. Hamburg 06/19/2012

Real Madrid's German international Mesut Özil has reported the owner of a Twitter account for racial abuse, after the player was accused of not being German, according to the Bild newspaper.

The player's lawyer - Sascha Beumer – decided to take legal action after an unknown Twitter user posted messages using a private account during the Denmark-Germany game, stating that the player was not German and criticising his surname – which is of Muslim descent.

"Özil isn't German! A piece of paper doesn't change your origins", were the unknown user’s words in their first message, then adding that nobody with a non-German name should play in the German team.

Soon after, amid the protests - both online and offline -, Twitter decided to block the user's account from where the racist comments came from.

The Real Madrid player's father and agent - Mustafa Özil – totally agreed with his son's decision to report the incident: "it's important to say that you can't get away with saying things like that. This person has overstepped the mark".

Özil – who has played in all three of Germany's games so far in the 2012 Euros – was born in Gelsenkirchen (West Germany), while his parents come from Turkey. The Real Madrid player has always defended his German status.

Comments

[naobot.livejournal.com]

This!

The Germans' contemporary attitude toward nationalism and apologising for their history might strike Americans (us Canadians too -- but I do think Americans tend to be more patriotic) as overly self-flagellating and no longer necessary, but as a child of immigrants, I really appreciate the thought into promoting that sort of attitude of "We must never forget". Because really? Powerful nations in history have shown us time and time again that yes, we WILL forget and pretend these bad things in the past never happened.

I'm Chinese-Canadian and I absolutely sympathise with older generation Chinese people who dislike Japan and their government for not really acknowledging the war crimes they've committed. I dislike that the Japanese government doesn't address this, but I definitely don't hold it against the Japanese people in general, and quite like them.

I mean even Canada, which is an amazingly tolerant and diverse country, is guilty of tiptoeing around history involving some pretty awful mistreatment of Native people, for example.

/rant