We’re All Here Together: Black, White, Red, Yellow & Brown
If you thought the 2026 FIFA World Cup would competently wind down to its final few contests without any undue controversy, you would be both right and wrong. The games have been competitive and entertaining to a fault, with the usual surprises and unforeseen collapses. But what no one could have reasonably anticipated was that anti-Black racism would explode into the forefront due to a deeply offensive social post by Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla
As a bit of background, France and Paraguay played a match on July 4th, 2026, on America’s 250th birthday, on a stifling hot day at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The French team winning due to the routine brilliance of star Kylian Mbappé. A competitor for the golden boot which is given to the World Cup player who scores the most goals during the course of the tournament.
It was a rough and tumble match against Paraguayans causing some French team members, including Mbappé, to later label the tactics used by Paraguay as dirty and cheap.
The outcome was a positive 1-0 win for France, and thus the French team, which is astonishingly composed of mostly identifiably “Black” ballplayers of immediate African descent [a controversy of another kind in the French right-wing media] was off to the next round of competition.