The 34-year-old, who is now plying his trade at Sampdoria, spoke out about an act of racism which he encountered in an upmarket jewellery shop near his home - a shop where, one day, a £10,000 watch had caught the striker's eye.
"I asked the saleswoman - who was also black like me - 'Could you show me that watch please?'" Eto'o told the channel.
"First, I saw her turn and look at her co-workers like, 'Uh, what should I do?'
"Eventually, she let me see the watch. I looked at it and said, 'OK, I'll buy it.'
"I took out my credit card and when she went to go run it through the machine, she came back and said that it was declined.
"I asked her, 'Was it declined or did you not want it to be accepted?' because this has happened to me many times and she told me, 'No, it was declined.'”
While the issue was going on, the player had to call his brother who was close by to help salvage the situation and when he came in, he questioned them on why they refused to sell the wrist watch to his brother.
"My brother asked, 'What's going on?' and she said 'Nothing, nothing.'
"But he said, 'No, because when I came in, I saw how all of you were looking at us... My brother can afford this and the way you are treating him shows that you think just because he's black, he can't afford this watch.'
"Then the woman slipped up, and said, 'No, it's just that we had some Nigerians in the store the other day who came in with fake credit cards.'
"I don't know if you can imagine the weight of what she said. If one of my own makes a mistake, they judge us all.
"If tomorrow in Africa a white man makes a mistake, should we judge all white people? No!...
"It was a mistake of her to categorise. I don't think she's a racist person, but she stereotyped all black people as 'those people'."
No comments:
Post a Comment