Luka Sabbat points out that Milan is racist

Among the Milano Fashion Week guests, portrayed outside the shows of Fendi, Moschino and Prada were A$AP Rocky, Winnie Harlow, Gigi Hadid, and Luka Sabbat. The latter, influencer, and model - born in New York in 1997 - few hours before the Prada ’show tweeted on his profile two posts where he called out Milano and Italy to be one of the most racist places where he has ever been, adding in his first tweet "I gotta get the fuck out of here asaaapppp”.

The statement has found support in his fans and in other fashion talents like the model Salem Mitchell, who commented “I Agree” or Leomie Anderson, who retweeted “Why do you think I stopped going?”

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By saying “no matter where” he probably referred to other episodes of racism that might have happened in the previous days, or maybe during the Venice Film Festival, where he participated as Executive Director in the movie “Giant Being Lonely” directed by Grear Patterson.

Some of the issues came up apparently in two episodes which pushed Sabbat to his statements: first one in a restaurant in the city center, where the waiter refused to serve the influencer and his family; the second - still in Milan - with a taxi driver.

Sabbat’s words are shameful and give a chance for reflection to Milan, a city that wants to be multi-cultural and cosmopolitan but where episodes of racism are still present and too often not called out and judged fairly. In the previous weeks, the theme of racism was already brought up in Italy by the new Inter’s player Romelu Lukaku, who has been a victim of racist insults during the game against Cagliari and then mocked in a local tv program. A similar episode happened as well to the Ivorian player of AC Milan Frank Kessiè, the center of insult during the away-match in Verona. 

The intentions of Sabbat to not return to Italy recalls the happenings of A$AP Rocky in Sweden. After the aggression and detention, one of the recurrent themes is the brutality by Swedish police against Flacko, accused by ASAP’s mother and G-Eazy. During his detention, many artists - like Tyler The Creator and all the members of ASAP Mob - announced the boycott of concerts and tours in Sweden.

We hope that is not a generic Italy to be seen as guilty but rudeness and fear are the ones to be condemned. There’s no excuse and no other way to lighten the issue, what is left, even if we are not involved in this, is to apologize to Luke in the name of Milan and to do everything possible to make this city as welcoming as possible