Greek athlete expelled for racist tweet

I don't get the joke, is Greece facing an influx of mosquitos from around the Nile? I doubt I'd find it funny, but I don't even see how it makes sense?

Do you know what west nile mosquitoes are?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nile_virus

It does make sense, it's just dark humor.

I'm not sure who comes off looking worse from this, the athlete or the team who have massively overreacted to this.

"with so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitos will be eating food from their own home."

How is that racist? I know its a bit rude and bigotted. Obviously offensive.. but not racist.

It does seem really blown out of proportion.

Twitter seems to be the downfall of a lot of people thought

Have people not already learned that they ought to be careful about what they put up on Facebook or Twitter?
There's always that one person who has to mess everything up.

This is the type of stuff that can result in strained international relations, public backlash, etc if consequences are not given. That athlete should be thankful she didn't get a lifetime ban or something insane like that.

Are you kidding me? She's an athlete, not an ambassador or politician. The only people she's going to offend are those who profit off being offended or, perhaps more accurately, make a profit off writing about offended people (leftist publications and so on). It's a manufactured controversy. What kind of world do we live in that people can get banned from international athletic competitions for writing online about a political party that we belong to or making a joke about some people in your country?

What if she wrote a joke about sunburned British tourists on Greek islands? "D'ohoho it's the first time in my life I've ever seen a Englishman that's not burned" or something to that effect? I'll tell you what would happen: nothing.

but da niles in egypt not greece

Yeah because sunburns are comparable to starving, homeless africans right?

The comment is aimed at a particular race and it's quite offensive to that particular race (I am not going to say why, it's pretty obvious.)

I don't think it's that massive a reaction. In the real world, there are no second chances. Mistakes carry heavy penalties. The Olympics committee must respond swiftly in these types of things because there is literally no excuse for saying this kinda stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see it as a joke working in another place...maybe by Jimmy Carr or something...but as an Olympian representing your country, no way.

This is the type of stuff that can result in strained international relations, public backlash, etc if consequences are not given. That athlete should be thankful she didn't get a lifetime ban or something insane like that.