Banana Truthers Say "We Are All Monkeys" Campaign A Media Conspiracy

You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you'll never fool some Villareal fans into believing your simplistic racist narrative, lame-stream media.

As proof, an assembly of Villareal fans came together to protest what they feel is the unjustified treatment of David Campayo Lleo, who was arrested after owning up to his role in last weekend's banana throwing incident.

Owning up in a very narrow sense, that is. According to one of the protesters interviewed above, young David was enjoying a nice mid-game lunch prepared by his madre when he got into an argument with his girlfriend. In the heat of anger, he responded like any put-upon boyfriend would in such a situation and chucked his uneaten banana onto the pitch. To hear them tell it, the media's veritable "lynching" of this upstanding molder of young minds—he reportedly was a coach for Villareal's youth team—is an affront to justice everywhere.

This story... has some holes. But what fun is that? Let's do as the popular protest sign asks and "Turn Off The TV, Turn On Our Minds." Let's look at the evidence with fresh eyes:

OK, the camera cuts to the corner flag after the banana has already been thrown, so we can't exactly determine the timing of the toss. However, it is motionless when Alves spots it, so it wasn't like he noticed it whizzing by his head. It could have been lying there for minutes for all we know. Villareal were winning at that point, so why would they want to antagonize Alves then? The cheer from the crowd when he eats it shows that in general the spectators weren't hostile to the Brazilian. Why would an otherwise happy crowd be racist?

And that doesn't even take into account the external evidence. It's now come to light that the whole "we are all monkeys" movement was an orchestrated scheme hatched by Alves, Barcelona teammate Neymar, and a marketing company. The next time either of them saw a banana thrown at them, they were going to eat it and then roll out the "we are all monkeys" social media campaign. We at least think we know that Campayo wasn't paid to throw the banana himself, but maybe Alves was searching particularly hard for one, even one that had been sitting there for a while? Maybe Alves even got a tan the night before to appear especially black that day to goad a spectator into launching his lunch? Let's not rule out the possibility that Dani Alves is the real racist here, people.

[ The Guardian]