Seid Visin, he was only 20 years old. He was born in Ethiopia and was adopted in Italy as a child, at the age of 7, in Nocera Inferiore, where he took his own life the other day. He had played in the youth teams of Inter and Milan and for a while he had been roommate of Gigio Donnarumma. Then he left professional football for personal reasons and returned to Benevento, to be closer to his family.
He was a boy like any other. Simple, divided between sport, work and family. But inside he carried a burden greater than him: fear for the color of his skin. The suffering of not feeling accepted, but discriminated against. So something broke, too many thoughts crowded his mind, and his life became insignificant, to the point of pushing him to take his own life.
Yesterday he was found lifeless in his home in Nocera Inferiore, committing suicide. Today, the Corriere della Sera he published a heartbreaking letter of his, written and delivered some time ago to some friends and to his psychotherapist, in which he talks about the pain of racism suffered every day.
“Wherever I go, wherever I am, I feel the weight of people’s skeptical, prejudiced, disgusted and frightened looks on my shoulders like a boulder,” writes Seid in the letter, speaking of the reactions to the color of his skin: doubt, when he entered in shops, that he was a thief. Fear in the eyes of people on public transport, who they thought was a pickpocket.
“I remember everyone loved me. Wherever I was, wherever I went, everyone turned to me with joy, respect and curiosity. Now it seems that everything has turned upside down ». “I was able to find a job”, he writes, “which I had to leave because too many people, especially the elderly, refused to be served by me and, as if I did not already feel uneasy, they also pointed to me as responsible because many young Italians (whites) could not find work ».
Then a sort of confession: «I used to make bad jokes about blacks and immigrants as if to emphasize that I was not one of them. But it was fear. The fear of the hatred I saw in people’s eyes towards immigrants ».
Finally, Said recalls that «the discomfort and suffering I am experiencing are a drop of water compared to the ocean of suffering experienced by those who prefer to die rather than lead a life in misery and hell. Those people who risk their lives, and many have already lost it, just to smell, to taste the flavor of what we simply call “Life” ».
There are no right words to say goodbye to a 20-year-old boy: our thoughts go out to Seid Visin, his family and those who loved him. pic.twitter.com/sRSCExqw1x
— AC Milan Youth Sector (@acmilanyouth) June 4, 2021
A life broken too soon, that of Seid Visin. The Rossoneri club through its social channels immediately expressed condolences to the family of the young man of Ethiopian origin who was also a partner of Gigio Donnarumma in the Rossoneri youth teams. “There are no right words to say goodbye to a 20-year-old boy: our thoughts go to Seid Visin, his family and those who loved him,” reads a post on Twitter.
Pain was also joined by the other Milanese club, Inter always on social media: “We too gather around Seid Visin’s family in this moment of great pain.”