Kovalev's manager: "Sergey is not a racist."

[Earl-Hickey]

they put him in there with that scumbag stevenson and kovalev will be accused of a hate crime

[MDPopescu]

Paranoid/schizoid talk.

[DannYankee]

How the fk does saying a word that sounds like something insulting in a whole different language get you in trouble? Negro in a lot Spanish countries is not an insult is just describing people's color whites are blanco black people negro which means black; first time i heard of specific words to refer to someone's race in a denigrating negative way etc was when i moved to the US as a kid now that I think about it.

[Citizen Koba]

Sounded that way here.

You've heard the context and the explanation - he's being interviewed in Russian for a Russian audience - the use of the word is totally normal and acceptable in that context.

Not everywhere is the US or UK - Russia has a miniscule black population and was never had african colonies or black slavery - culturally the same sensitivities don't even exist. Of course as a major land empire Russia has it's own ********** (the Caucasians for instance) who can be treated badly, and are often seen as undesirable and even ******ised - but Blacks? - There just is no issue in Russia.

There just isn't a parallel - though I'd imagine Sergey will have to learn to appreciate the cultural mores of the US a little more now his career appears to be taking off.

[Da Machine]

Looks like when Sergey fought Grover Young, Young pulled a (in Kovalev's opinion) fake injury on him before the 4th, making it a technical draw and the only blemish on his record.

He saw him after and asked why wasn't he in intensive care because his antics suggested he was seriously hurt. Young said something about a rematch and Kovalev said something along lines of: "I was hurt that this "sunburnt" earned easy money off the fight."

Read the interview for youself.

http://allboxing.ru/archives/2013-08...min%5D.html-10

Lol Kovalev is racist. ^^^^^^

Oh well, Hopkins is racist and no one cares. Tyson was racist no cared.

[DoktorSleepless]

Maybe. Je ne comprends pas, je suis Anglais. Though it does sound like a hard story to tell without broaching the subject of race. Layer that with the vagaries of a different language and cultural context (a long tradition of sefdom and totalitarian communism, not race based slavery), and you have a recipe for a 'grade A' fauxtroversy. I can't speak to the full extent of everything the man has ever said or written but it certainly doesn't seem like he has any great hate of black people.

He also called some dude a purebred nigger. The lack of a better word for "black person" is fair enough. Adding purebred to it though obviously meant to put the guy's black race in a negative light.

I can buy he's not really some whitepower racist and said some things in the heat in the moment, but these were some clearly racist comments from him.

[takingaim]

He also called some dude a purebred nigger.

The only proof of that is from Google translator lol

[-=Shade=-]

I can buy he's not really some whitepower racist and said some things in the heat in the moment, but these were some clearly racist comments from him.

Fair enough.

[DoktorSleepless]

The only proof of that is from Google translator lol

The Ukrainian guy (who knows Russian) on reddit translated it as pureblooded nigger.

[SthPaw]

This is the first I have heard about this. It's hard to get a concrete understanding though to be honest because he is speaking a language I don't understand therefore the word and how it is used isn't all that clear.

However I do understand that some languages in the world use variations of the word 'negro' as a term that in that language is acceptable I guess.

Like I said I don't know, but maybe he should consider the fact that he is trying to build his name to a primarily American/Western audience and words along those lines shouldn't be used in a way that could be perceived as negative by them, unless you are indeed racist and want to, but I'm not sure he is.