Mesut Özil

“This emotional disconnect is the conclusion of living a life oblivious to the fact that their skin colour is the norm and all others deviate from it.

“At best, white people have been taught not to mention that people of colour are “different” in case it offends us. They truly believe that the experiences of their life as a result of their skin colour can and should be universal. I just can’t engage with the bewilderment and the defensiveness as they try to grapple with the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the way that they do.

“They’ve never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white, so any time they’re vaguely reminded of this fact, they interpret it as an affront. Their eyes glaze over in boredom or widen in indignation. Their mouths start twitching as they get defensive. Their throats open up as they try to interrupt, itching to talk over you but not to really listen, because they need to let you know that you’ve got it wrong.”

The above is an excerpt from a book that’s highly recommended if you want to understand why a lot of ethnic people don’t like to talk about racism with ‘white people’.

But I think it’s quite relevant as to why a lot of these German footballers should just shut the fuck up lol.

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Why are they all so triggered by what he said that they are still bringing it up weeks later. It’s done ffs, he’s not about to engage in a debate about it.

@SRCJJ what’s the book?

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Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race By Reni Eddo-Lodge

Cheers. Gonna put it on the audible wish list for my next credit.

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To play a bit of the devil’s advocate. We always say that experiences/point of views for us are different because of the colour of our skin etc (born of immigrants parents myself) why doesn’t that go both ways and are white people point of views discredited in this manner?

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Kroos has every right to defend and speak for his team. Some people are basically calling them racists and happy to believe it because they’re white Germans, which in itself is very much prejudiced anyway.

He’s entitled to believe that Ozil didn’t receive any racism from any fellow players, and if there was any beef with him it was political rather than racial. He has been a German-Turkish footballer for a decade and a big part of this group in the national team for nearly as long and I don’t recall anyone saying the players were racist towards him before the Erdogan incident.

He can’t however speak for the entire DFB and I think they’re the ones who were cunts and played it all wrong. They’re the ones who should have kicked him out if they found his actions unbearable, and they’re the ones who should have stood by their man once they’d let this carry on.

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I got bought this for my birthday, haven’t got round to reading it yet. My gf has though and thought it was great.

Funnily enough before you told us which book it was I had a feeling it might be that

I understand if a man can’t know how it feels to be a woman in a patriarchal society or if a white man will never know how it feels to be a minority; but that doesn’t mean you should just shut down anything said by a white man.

Ozil was a mainstay for German team & if I am not wrong was a starter for them all the time until recently; so by all evidence German team functioned on merit rather than prejudice.
And both Mueller & Kroos are right that racism doesn’t exist in National team as Ozil himself didn’t state anything close to that. German FA perhaps were being a dick.

Even during this world cup, amidst all the racism, Ozil was played & was dropped because the team was not functioning well.
They could have taken Sane if the pic thing bothered German authorities so much.

All of this is blown out of proportion.

Ozil SHOULD have come out with his explanation of the picture lot lot earlier. His silence only made things worse.
His decision to retire is correct because the bridges are well & truly burnt down & are in rubbles.

A white man should be listened to if as @Craigie said

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This woman’s quote is very divisive, it really doesn’t address the elephant in the room:

A. Most people in the same group don’t experience the same things. And to suggest that white people in any way are telling others that their experience is universal, is a fallacy.

B. If approach about race and not expect to be challenged is foolish.

C. Ask a poor white person what it means to have power in oppose to this race baiter, who has money and went to college/university.

This rhetoric is from a victim perspective; just because you aren’t white you aren’t oppressed, as well as just because you are white you don’t have privilege and power.

As Blackman if I am against racism, it should all racism including racism against white people.

Özil experience was with individuals not the country or German football as whole, so you could yeah German football is not actually racist.

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Mustache’s cunt. You know what i mean :henry2:

I picked this up at the airport a few weeks back on the way home, liked what I read but haven’t had time to finished it yet.

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^^^ This.

^^^ This.

^^^ This.

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Fuck sake, these guys are footballers, not statesmen. Just drop the ball and carry on.

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I like Honigstein.

He’s a good apple.

When you said “you are German when winning, not German when losing”…
you are playing the “racism” card and all in (against everybody).

Yes, Ozil did not accuse everybody in fact, and on the other hand, Kroos just said there is no racism on the NT. I don’t think Kroos had said anything wrong IMO.

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It’s not the racism card at all and he never called everyone racists, I question whether some read his statements properly.

The fact that you’re saying that shows how people just don’t get it, when Germany win there’s little criticism of him but when they lose or it goes poorly they come out en masse to tear him down. You don’t see the same directed at Muller and the like who was worse than Ozil, it’s very telling.

Whether it be former German internationals or the German public themselves it is a pattern, also I don’t see how anyone gets to tell Ozil how he should feel.

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People should not single anybody out for that collective shit show by Germany in the world cup. People are allowed though to question sub standard performances by individuals and imo Ozil clearly was one of them with a number of other senior players.

When you used the word “german and non-german”… that includes a hell lot of people.

No doubt Hoenss and/or Grindel used racial slur/inappropriate language to criticize Ozil… but there is no contradict to what Kroos said. German NT, the team itself does not have racism. Khedira and Boateng choose to stay.