Racist defaces mural celebrating black Olympian in Rome

A mural in Rome celebrating a black Italian volleyball player who helped to steer her country to Olympic gold has become the focus of a national racism debate after the artwork was whitened.
The image of a leaping Paola Egonu was painted by a graffiti artist after the player, who was born in Italy to Nigerian parents, became top scorer in Italy’s women’s volleyball victory against the United States in Paris.
Defying Italians who believe a black person cannot be Italian, the artist, Laika, wrote Italianità (Italianness) under the image.
A day later, Egonu’s skin in the mural was spray-painted pink in an apparent effort to undermine the idea of a black person wearing Italy’s blue sporting colours. The ball in the artwork, on which “Stop Racism” was written, was painted over.
Italian newspapers ran before-and-after images of the mural on their front pages on Wednesday. Laika blamed “certain people who call themselves ‘patriots’ but are simply racist, xenophobic and ignorant”. She told La Stampa that her mural was a “slap for all racists who talk about Italianness based on skin colour. That’s dangerous — we are not a race.”
After the defacing of the mural, a member of the public tried to restore Egonu’s skin to its darker colour using a marker pen.
Later, Antonio Tajani, the Italian foreign minister, said: “I want to express solidarity with Paola Egonu and the most total disdain for this serious gesture of vulgar racism.”
The spray-painting was the latest example of how Egonu, 25, has become a lightning rod in Italy’s race debate. Last year the Italian army general Roberto Vannacci wrote a bestseller in which he claimed “Paola Egonu is an Italian citizen but her features don’t reflect Italianness.” His suggestion that people of colour could not be truly Italian attracted the approval of Matteo Salvini, the coalition partner of Giorgia Meloni, the the prime minister. Salvini recruited him as an MEP. After the Olympian victory Vannacci doubled down on his view that Egonu’s “colour does not represent the majority of Italians”.
Bruno Vespa, Italy’s most famous TV news host, sought to praise the Olympic performance of Egonu and Myriam Sylla, another Italian of foreign heritage on the volleyball team, but when he called them “winning examples of integration” he was criticised as being tone deaf since both Egonu and Sylla were born in Italy.
The mural drew attention to the growing number of black athletes representing Italy, many of whom have faced abuse, as well as those who cannot be picked for national teams because of the country’s law preventing children born in Italy to migrants from earning citizenship until they turn 18.
The law sets Italy apart from neighbours like the UK, where a newborn child gets a British passport if one parent has settled status.
Reacting to the defacing of the mural, Elly Schlein, the centre-left opposition leader, promised to continue to campaign for a law change to give citizenship at birth.
Nicola Molteni, a junior interior minister and a member of the right-wing League party, said: “We have a citizenship law: it works and does not need changing.”
Asked about Vannacci’s comments, Sylla, who was born in Italy to Ivorian parents, said: “I don’t know what he said and I am not interested.” Pointing to her Olympic gold medal, she added: “I have this around my neck and I am proud of it.”