Pièce de Racistance: The Suarez Dissonance

If you think about it, Luis Suárez just does not fit that picture. Furthermore, he’s proven to be a repeat offender for getting himself banned for biting an opponent. He dives, makes frustration-driven late tackles on opposition ankles; the lot. We can only imagine the amount of replays we’d have to offer to the Sheffield Uniteds of this world because Luis did something dishonourable.

BigFREEbet would take bets for Arsène Wenger saying he ‘didn’t see the incident’ to protect Suárez. He’d still be a cheating b**tard but he would be our cheating b**tard. Again, I’m not trying to make a case here (subconsciously I am, forgive me), but that’s how it is and we shouldn’t deny that.

I do believe that people can change and that it’s possible to house-train someone like Suárez, but we just don’t know if we actually could. If you still want Arsenal to sign him despite all that, I can’t blame you. Luis is obviously a fantastic, trophy-hungry player and we’d have similar targets in that regard. Well, except eating Ivanovi? maybe.

Another interesting phenomenon is the things we do to maintain our newfound equilibrium. Patrice ‘he’s just saying that because he doesn’t want to cause any more trouble’ Evra is suddenly a great source of information on Luis’ racistness. Confirmatory bias, as psychologists and wannabes like me call it, is something we’re bound to display when subconsciously corrupting our beliefs, especially when messing with deeply entrenched values like racial equality. It’s not even about whether Suárez is or is not a racist, but the fact that ‘Luis’ grandfather is black’ is suddenly great logic to prove that he isn’t.

It’s the same bias that causes the massive rift in our fan base. Those who want Arsène out refuse to look at evidence that Arsène has done much better than they want to believe. Same goes for the people who think that Le Prof is the almighty one. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It’s just our need to confirm our beliefs that causes the attitude polarization.

Anyway, I find myself being subject to the exact psychological processes I’m trying to warn you about. As a final test, allow me to Morpheus-of-the-Matrixly let you choose between the red or the blue pill. Choose both and, like your author, feel at war with yourself.

Choose the red pill, to feel disgusted with Luis “The Cheat” Suárez.

Choose the blue pill, to admire the greatness of Luis “Ours” Suárez.