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1 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy INDEX Introduction PART 1. The political and cultural context A decade of racist infamy Annamaria Rivera The long parable of the Italian reception system Sergio Bontempelli – Giuseppe Faso Lights and shadows of media information on racism Paola Barretta Speaking of hate. A decade of violent and racist rhetoric online and beyond Paola Andrisani 2009-2019: ten years of antiracism in Italy divided between “fear” and welcome Grazia Naletto PART 2. 10 years and more of Chronicles of Ordinary Racism Racism in Italy. Official Data Lunaria Racism documented by Lunaria on Cronache di ordinario razzismo database Lunaria 2008-2019: eleven years of ordinary racism in Italy Grazia Naletto 2.1 Justice and racism: 11 exemplary cases Erba. Guilty for 24 hours. The media lynching of Azouz Marzouk Paola Andrisani Parma. The brutality of institutional racism suffered by Emmanuel Foster Bonsu Grazia Naletto Castel Volturno. Massacre of camorra, racist massacre Grazia Naletto 2 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy Tourin. Those “Goodfellas” of Continassa convicted of racism Paola Andrisani Milan. “Zingaropoli”: prohibition of racism even for political parties Grazia Naletto Villa Opicina. Alina, free “against herself”. Nevertheless, “the fact doesn’t exist” Paola Andrisani Stormfront. The success of the world’s largest racist hate site Paola Andrisani Rome. Construction and deconstruction of a prejudice around the murder of Muhammad Shahzad Khan Roberta Salzano Parma. Eugenio Tiraborrelli, who died as a recluse at 82 years of age for a “crime” of solidarity Annamaria Rivera Macerata. It wasn’t a revenge, but an attempted slaughter. Racist and fascist Grazia Naletto Lodi: If the municipality discriminates Martino Mazzonis Bad words, popular reactions, political choices and racist violence: a perverse plot in 11 exemplary cases Rosarno. A rebellion still unheard Veronica Iesué Adro. The removed humiliation of forty-two children Francesca Giuliani “Let’s burn them alive.” Tor Sapienza, year 2014 Veronica Iesué The virtual and actual barricades in Gorino Leone Palmeri Humanity trapped. The case of the two Roma women locked in the garbage cage in Follonica Roberta Salzano Desirée Mariottini: killed twice Veronica Iesué Torre Maura: racism in East Rome Francesca Giuliani 3 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy Casal Bruciato: the besieged house Elisa Pini Carola Rackete. Searching a “safe port” against hatred Paola Andrisani The twelfth man on the field: the Balotelli case and racism in the football Paola Andrisani From yellow alarm to closed ports. Racism and xenophobia during the Covid-19 pandemic Grazia Naletto 4 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy Introduction This is a special white paper. It looks back over twelve years of Chronicles of Ordinary Racism and closes in the midst of the protests that have broken out all over the world at the cry Black Lives Matter. These pages, as well as the handwritten signs and slogans of the thousands of young people who took the streets, denounce that there is a tight, systemic and perverse interweaving between the wrong words used by those who have power, distorted representations of facts, the violent offenses of those who comment online and the physical racist violence perpetrated individually and in groups - sometimes using the power that comes from their institutional role. Young people in Minneapolis, like those in Rome, Milan, Bologna and other Italian cities, are telling the world with simplicity and immediacy, that rebelling against inequalities and discrimination is a good and just thing. They remind us that the most engaging and conscience-motivating battles are those promoted by those who suffer injustice on their own skin. They give us hope, reminding us that when rights and dignity are violated and trampled shamelessly and with arrogance, indignation can trigger unexpectedly and spontaneously, even without the support of structured organizations. We needed this spontaneous, widespread, pervasive, in some ways surprising and exciting rebellion. Because racism is not a virus, it has its roots in the history of the “Belpaese” and is, above all, institutional racism. 5 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy We did affirm this already in 2009, when we published our first white paper. And we have repeated it from 2011 onwards, every day on our website cronachediordinariorazzismo.org. In this fifth report we, once again, bring evidence for this with the analysis of the 7.346 cases of racism we have documented between 1 January 2008 and 31 March 2020 and the twenty-two exemplary stories. As always, framed in a political, social and institutional context that the essays contained in the first part of the book help us to retrace. To look beyond the decade is important because many tend to ascribe the rise in discriminations and racist violence that took place in our country in particular from 2018 onwards to the success of the propaganda of some illustrious right- wing leaders. Just as, specularly, the momentary crisis of visibility and consensus, has been sufficient to declare in a very hasty manner the end of the spread of the most violent forms of racist propaganda. The key word in these pages is, therefore, memory. It is memory that helps us to reconstruct the indissoluble interweaving of migration, migration policies and racism, which has characterised the history of our country since the 1980s. Racism has been accompanied, in recent years, by Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsyism, but it is mainly migrations and asylum seeking that have hegemonised the public debate and inspired the most serious physical violence. It takes much more than the momentary fading of more explicitly discriminatory noise to mark a turning point. The young people who are demonstrating while we write this introduction are also calling for the rethinking of the political agenda, on languages, on forms of 6 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy protest and mobilization and on the main lines of the Italian public debate on racism. A reflection that we felt the need to propose starting from the awareness that the great wealth of initiatives and interventions of solidarity scattered throughout the Italian territory are counterbalanced by a still insufficient propensity to network collaboration and a level of analysis that still remains too dependent on the emergencies imposed by institutional policy. Again, stopping and looking back may perhaps help us in our search for greater clarity, consensus and strength. The “the knee on the neck civilization”1 is not a destiny. We can fight it if we recognize in the insults, racist propaganda, institutional discrimination, denied workers’ rights, segregation of camps and detention centres, punches and kicks thrown against "blacks", "refugees", foreigners, Jews and Muslims, Roma, Sinti and Camminanti people that we remember in these pages, the darkest signs of an entire economic and social system that is structurally based on the growth of inequalities. A system that together we can change. Before wishing you a good reading, I would like to express my special thanks to all the people who have helped and supported us in these twelve years: to the most experienced activists and researchers, as well as to the many young people who have become more and more passionate about the Cronache di Ordinario Razzismo work. Without their patience, willingness, dedication and perseverance, Lunaria would not have been able to engage so deeply in this daily battle for rights, against privileges, all forms of inequality, discrimination and racism. 1 It is the headline of a good article by Alessandro Portelli, il manifesto 14 June 2020. 7 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy PART 1. The political and cultural context 8 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy A decade of racist infamy Annamaria Rivera The massacre of Florence, the role of the far right In Italy as elsewhere, the public attitude and debate on racism and the rights of migrants, refugees, minorities are, as I have been writing for some years, mostly characterized by the lack of the sense of development, processuality and of long duration. This is what I call the rhetoric of the first time. In the face of serious or extreme racism acts, what prevails in the collective consciousness as well as in media, institutional and political actors, and even among some left-wing intellectuals is the tendency to remove the premonitory signs and antecedents and to underestimate or ignore the propaganda, the policies, the legislative measures that have contributed to create a climate conducive to the most brutal racism. This has also been the case over the last decade, which has been characterized by peaks of racist violence. The massacre of Senegalese citizens which took place in Florence on December 13, 2011, at the hands of the neo-Nazi militant Gianluca Casseri, should have been considered the expression of a tragic leap which, favored by a progression of antecedents, would not remain isolated. The massacre took place when Casseri, holding a gun went on the indiscriminate hunt for "niggers", killing 54-year-old Diop Mor and 40-year-old Samb Modou, both street vendors. His third target, 34-year-old Moustapha Dieng, survived remaining permanently paraplegic. Before committing suicide, Casseri proceeded to the market of San Lorenzo, in the center of the city, and seriously wounded 44-year-old Cheikh Mbengue and 34-year-old Mor Sougou. What makes this episode so alarming is the fact that it was carried out with coldness and determination, not in a marginal, degraded environment, characterized by 9 Chronicles of Ordinary Racism. Fifth White Paper on Racism in Italy conflicts of proximity, but in the heart of Florence.