Racism has flared up in Italy
with headline-grabbing cases in Lombardy and Umbria this week
that have spurred commentators to suggest the national mood is
hardening against migrants.
"Kill the n**ger" was scrawled on the exterior wall of a
family who have adopted an African man at Melegnano near Milan
earlier this week.
The phrase was accompanied by a swastika.
The family, who have hosted the 21-year-old Senegalese for
two years, said this was not the first incident of the kind.
"What is happening in so many cases today in Italy is also
amplified by politicians like (Interior Minister and
anti-migrant League leader Matteo) Salvini," said the mother of
Bakary Dandio, Angela Bedoni, who adopted him with her husband
Paolo Pozzi.
"We must build bridges, not close ports," she said referring
to Salvini's closing Italian ports to NGO migrant rescue ships.
She also said Salvini's recent migrants and security decree
"is putting many people into difficulties today. And it is a
question of culture too. It is important to understand what
happened in Italy before 1945 and today".
Salvini replied by saying "I respect the pain of a mother, I
embrace her son and I condemn all forms of racism.
"And the lady should respect the demand for security and
legality that is coming from Italians, that I make concrete as a
minister.
"Blocking migrant smugglers and their accomplices, installing
CCTV cameras and expelling criminals is simply justice, it isn't
racism".
On Thursday, then, education officials in the central Umbria
region said that they were looking into reports that a supply
teacher had bullied a black pupil.
The Tuttoggi.info site reported that the teacher made the boy
stand in front of a window with his back to the class at a
school near Foligno and said to the other children "look how
ugly he is".
The teacher's reported defence was that it was all part of a
social experiment, and she was trying to explain the Holocaust.
"We have been informed of this alleged case and we are
running all the necessary checks," Antonella Iunti, the director
of the regional school office, told ANSA.
Education Minister Marco Bussetti said "urgent measures"
would be taken and ministry sources said the teacher would be
suspended.
On Friday The father of the boy said "it is an episode of
racism and it was not a social experiment".
The boy's sister was also singled out to be mocked by the
class, sources said.
Talking to reporters outside the school, the father
said "both my kids are ill over this".
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