WATCH: Late-Night Stand-Off In Ħamrun Over Rubbish Times Quickly Turns Into Racist Tirade
Another day, another bunch of racist comments. What started off as one Ħamrun citizen’s video of a foreign family dumping their rubbish late at night on his street corner quickly took a turn for the problematic… both in the video itself and the comments that poured in on Facebook.
The video, which amassed nearly 50,000 likes and hundreds of shares in just over a day, is a minute-long stand-off between what seems to be a Maltese family and their black neighbours.
“Go dirty your own country, you dirty people,” a Maltese man can be heard calling out to one of the litterers, who at a point comes up to his face and seems to even understand some Maltese.
“This is our place too,” one of the women smiles and replies in broken Maltese, going on to cite Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to back her argument.
Posted just after midnight – presumably minutes after the incident itself – the video quickly gained a lot of traction… and it was only a matter of time until some problematic comments started pouring in.
“Dirtier and more disgusting people than them don’t exist,” one comment said, echoing a lot of other repulsed people.
Others wrote verbal insults, but some even insinuated the man – who was quickly hailed as a “legend” – should’ve done more. “Why didn’t you give her a sliding tackle in the knee?” one comment bluntly suggested, getting multiple positive reactions.
Meanwhile, some people came in to make another important observation; this isn’t the first time it has happened, and it’s definitely not a race-specific issue.
“Why does it always have to be something about something else,” one comment said. “We’ve had problems in Malta too with people leaving rubbish and the council decided to put CCTV cameras up and caught locals not just foreigners.”
“Go check the valleys,” one other comment stated, with another explaining how his Maltese neighbours do this on a weekly basis and are very stand-offy whenever she confronts them.
“Where I live, Maltese people do that as well,” one person continued. “They put the rubbish bags out at night or on a Saturday night, which means it has to stay there till Monday after 9am.”
Whether this is a sadly common characteristic of our society regardless of race or is a symptom of bigger things like rubbish collection times which many people find unfeasible to fit into their daily routine, one thing’s for sure; leave it to us Maltese to quickly turn any issue into a political or racial issue. Or heck, both.
