African-American

Stuff like this cracks me up:

SI: You've talked previously about hearing whistles, boos and fans making monkey noises on the road when you had the ball. That was your first real racism experience. How did you block it out?

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Beasley: It's kind of hard to, but you can't let that get to you. You just try not to listen. You can definitely hear it but at the same time you just have to block it out and play. Score and play well. That's the way they will shut up. It's hard to block out sometimes but at the same time, that part you have to get over and play. Being talked about racially sucks, but at the same time, I have to carry on and do my job. This year I haven't got any boos, so it's better for me right now. But at the same time, I'm sure it will happen sometime soon. Racism exists in soccer. It sucks but it does. It's weird: You have guys on your team that are African-American and you are booing me. I haven't received any racial taunts this year, though.

No, it's not the racism that I find funny. See, the thing is, Beasley plays in the Netherlands. There is only one other actual African-American in the entire league. Sure, there are plenty of black players, but few of them have any connection to the U.S. But since the term African-American has superceded "black" you find ridiculous situations like this (click here for another example) from time to time.

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BTW, reading the rest of the article should help put to rest any notion that there is no racism in Europe, if anyone ever believed that in the first place.