Greens lawmaker Katrin Göring-Eckardt apologized for the post made after Germany’s 2-0 win against Hungary. It comes after a survey showed 21% of Germans would like to see more white players on the national team.
German lawmaker Katrin Göring-Eckardt on Thursday deleted a social media post commenting on the skin color of German football players after it was met with backlash.
She apologized for the post made after Germany’s 2-0 victory over Hungary in their second Euro 2024 stage match on Wednesday.
Göring-Eckhardt is a member of the Greens and vice president of the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament.
“This team is truly exceptional. Just imagine if there were only white German players,” the German lawmaker reportedly said in the now-deleted post on platform X, formerly Twitter.
I’m guessing that’s what she meant, but I think no matter which way she meant it (either that the team would be worse all-white or better all-white), it’s not a good comment to make either way as I don’t see how skin color relates to skill.
She’s praising the team for recruiting based on skill, not color. A 1/5 of Germans believe the team isn’t white enough.
The players on the team are there because they’re the best available.
If you changed that based on race, then it’s racist.
She meant that if the team picked the best white people, the team wouldn’t be as good.
Just like if the team picked no white people, it wouldn’t be the best.
I legitimately don’t get why people think it’s racist that she pointed out the team won while being mixed race, and might not have won if they tried to have a racially homogeneous team over just the best available players.
Like, can you explain your logic for saying her pointing out making race more important than skill would lead to a worse team is somehow racist?
I genuinely want to understand how you got to that conclusion, and no one else wants to explain how they did either.
Where did I say that it’s racist? I said it’s not a good comment to make, purely from a logical standpoint.
Why do I think it’s not a good comment to make? Because I don’t think there should be any relation made to skin color at all in this case. Some of the best soccer players in the world/country just happen to have a certain skin color.
She makes it seem like an all-white team would definitely be worse (or better) compared to the current lineup, even if there were 11 white players objectively better at soccer than all other players that could’ve made up the team.
She could’ve said “the team is as good as it is because we didn’t discriminate between skin colors when picking the best players”. That would’ve brought her intended message across.
Oh ok.
So you think she said this in a vacuum, because you didn’t hear what the racists had been saying?
That would make sense. With zero context, it’s hard to understand.
Yes, she’s aware it didn’t come across well…
That’s why she deleted it and clarified…
Like, you know she’s a native German speaking, and sometimes when someone is speaking a second language things come across not as clear?
Apparently she tweeted it, didn’t she? So even if she tweeted it as a response to an ongoing discussion on X, this tweet would’ve been read by many as-is, and the tweet itself wouldn’t have provided a lot of context.
With that being said, I still don’t think her original statement logically made a lot of sense.
That’s all I’m saying bud :) just my opinion.