Milwaukee Bucks no. 15 NBA draft pick Giannis Antetokounmpo

In an appearance on Greek television yesterday, Golden Dawn leader MP Nikos Mihaloliakos compared Milwaukee Bucks Greek 18 year old no. 15 NBA draft pick Giannis Antetokounmpo to a chimpanzee. When asked to comment on Antetokounmpo becoming an exemplar for Greeks abroad, he remarked: “in the zoo if you give a chimpanzee a banana and a flag he’ll be ‘Greek’ too”. 

Antetokounmpo was born and raised in Greece to Nigerian parents but only received his Greek citizenship this past May due to Greece’s restrictive and often selectively applied citizenship law. This is not the first time that members of the neo-nazi Golden Dawn party have publicly questioned the “Hellenicity” of a black Greek athlete. Last October MP Elias Panagiotaros said that basketball player Sofoklis Schortsianitis is “not Greek”.

Video of the Mihaloliakos quote (in Greek) can be seen at around the 20.50 mark below:

h/t troktiko.eu (Greek)