What is happening to our society? The assault on wheelchair basketball player Beatrice Ion and her father shows that something has broken, or perhaps was never mended. We have deluded ourselves for too long that the seeds of racism were defeated, that they belonged to a closed chapter in twentieth-century history books. Daily news proves otherwise: the values we pride ourselves on, the values that built our post-war democracies, have too often remained mere words on paper.
Sport teaches that the rules are the same for everyone. All players, all athletes, must abide by the same rules to play together—regardless of sexual orientation, gender, ability, nationality, religion, or skin color.
The account of the assault on this Italian national team player and athlete shows how deeply fear of the different runs through too many people. Beatrice was attacked because she is Romanian and disabled; her father was beaten for trying to protect her. Fear of the different, fear of the unknown, and ignorance are countered by education. It is an obvious principle—so obvious it hardly needs stating—yet we must recognize how urgent it is to mount a comprehensive campaign against racial discrimination, religious discrimination, discrimination based on disability. I hope Beatrice Ion will be invited to schools, universities, and cultural centers to tell her story—not only the assault she and her father endured, but also her passion for sport, for basketball, for life itself.