So when someone uses a slur out loud, what should we do? Do we look at who it is directed to? the meaning of it? was it meant to degrade or was it a term of communal understanding. Or was it just a slip and move on? Or are they just too dumb to function.
Well, this actually was an OLYMPIC issue just this week as … TENNIS star Fabio Fognini apologised for using a homophobic slur – and blamed the 30°C heat at the Olympics in Tokyo. At least, that was the title of the post from the U.S. Sun.
It took a little of digging on the internet to find out what slur was used as most reports, not even Fox “news” was stating what actual word he said. The Sun states:
And throughout the third-round match, Fognini repeatedly berated himself as a ‘frocio’ – an anti-gay term in Italian.
Oh it was throughout? Most others just said he used a gay slur against himself, making it sound like he just dropped it once and he as well as all the others around him were stunned and he immediately corrected himself.
He did take to social media to say sorry in an Instagram Story, you know those things that just last 24 hours and then go away.
He wrote on Instagram the above and here is the Google translation:
The heat gives to the head! In today’s match I used a really stupid expression towards myself. Obviously I didn’t want to offend anyone’s sensibilities. I love the LGBT community and I apologize for the nonsense that came out of me. Now I’m going to my cot because I embrace you in Tokyo and at night.
So it was 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Farenheight (sounds like night tennis in Florida), but this lead to Fognini being mad at himself and apparently calling himself a frocio, which google translate says is fagot in English, just one “g”. Because that is what you do when you play poorly, you call yourself a stupid untalented homosexual over and over.
Yes, must have been the heat. And it must have been the heat when Fognini had issues in the recent past while playing a sport he is ranked 15th in the world at (he fell from 9th where was in 2019).
- In 2017, he was kicked out of the U.S. Open doubles tournament for repeatedly insulting the chair umpire during an earlier loss in the first round of singles competition.
- In 2019, he wished a ‘bomb would explode’ at Wimbledon then got into spat with Andy Murray, with the Brit brutally telling his opponent to ‘shut up’.
- Earlier in 2021, he was defaulted from the Barcelona Open – again for verbal abuse.
So yeah, it could have been the heat. And we should not play down the heat as Fognini’s opponent in the Olympic match, Daniil Medvedev needed two medical time outs because of the heat. He was heard saying, “I can finish the match, but I can die. If I die, who will take responsibility?”
So maybe it was the heat. But what do you think? A recent history of being a hot head, using frocio more than once, but he apologized so nothing like this would happen again. We didn’t dig to see if he apologized for the bulleted infractions above. I guess we should be lucky/happy he apologized.
Source: U.S. Sun
Lol, I can just imagine what happens when he gets really mad at himself. What will he do next, fist himself??? Italians are hilarious.