Announcing and Denouncing Spanish Hate Speech towards Catalans

I came across a new Catalan website that has been documenting a very disturbing trend of Spanish hate speech towards Catalans. The site, Apuntem.cat (which means, We take note), retweets and records the hate speech so that people understand what Catalans have to deal with on a daily basis (and perhaps some of the reasons behind Catalonia's independence movement).

Honestly, I find Apuntem's Twitter stream really difficult to read. The people they retweet are really vile. But I agree with Apuntem's basic premise, that it's important to shine the light on them. Indeed, it seems that many of the posters have deleted their Tweets after Apuntem outed them, for shame or embarrassment, who can say.

Here's a sampling of commentaries from back in March about some kids in a school in a little town called Ripoll who sung the Portuguese song "Ai se eu te pego" in Catalan. You can find the original Spanish versions collected here.

"Infinite contempt upon hearing the kids singing Michel Teló's song... IN CATALAN #CastillianWhereAreYou"

"Disgusting kids... "renew, renew" over and over again, and on top of it all, in Catalan."

"Shameful those 6 year olds who were on channel 4, that at that young age, they're already speaking Catalan."

"They bring out some disgusting kids singing in Catalan... this is Spain for God's sake!"

"Catalans make me sick, children, parents, old people... all of them, hope they die."

"Those kids who came out to sing to Guardiola in Catalan should have been drowned upon birth. There would be less garbage."

"It's like a kick in the mouth hearing those kids sing in Catalan. That's what you get on sports channel 4."

"What a shame that they teach those kids to speak Catalan at such a young age. We're in Spain!"


That was about little kids. When they're talking about Pep Guardiola, FC Barcelona's coach for the last four years who just retired and who gave his farewell speech in Catalan, it gets worse. (Original Spanish hate tweets.)

"Pep, hope you get it in the ass, don't speak Catalan, you son of a bitch."

"What a fucking obsession with speaking Catalan, god damnit."

"Go ahead, speak in Catalan, but I'll shit and stomp on your ancestors Guardiola, die.

"Guardiola speaking in Catalan, he should be ashamed!!!! CLOWN! YOU'RE A CLOWN"

"Jail for Guardiola for speaking Catalan in stadium full of Spaniards."

"What a shithead disgusting Catalan!!! Speak in Spanish you fucker. #disgustingcatalans"

"Pep, speak in Spanish, you Catalan shithead."

"Son of a bitch Pep speaking in Catalan... Speak Spanish you asshole"

"What a lack of respect! Speaking in Catalan? And what about the people who don't understand it? That's his humbleness. Fucking Catalonia."


And it goes on and on. And I didn't even translate the ones that suggest bombing the Catalan football stadium. They should be ashamed. And everyone who lets such hate speech go by without reproach shares the blame.

Indeed, it seems that some are ashamed, and take down their tweets. They should never post them to begin with.

@lizcastro

Reproduced with permission from the author