This isn’t going to be an attempt to show my deep understanding of racism, nor some pseudo intellectual lecture about how we need to understand Serbia. It’s just a rant setting out how I feel about racism in this country, and our endless struggle to come to terms with it. Being white, I realise I’m not in the best position to pass judgement. But, in the same regard, neither are nearly all the mainstream journalists who have peddled their views on the subject in the past twelve months. So, I won’t let that stop me.
But, before we get into it, let’s deal with Serbia, because it’s the collective fury about events there that prompted this post. I want UEFA to punish them, properly. I’ve got no time for the argument that really punitive measures might set back the efforts of the Serbian FA to eradicate racism from their football grounds. That’s their problem, and given the recent statements, it’s not going to make much difference to them either way. No footballers should have to be subjected to racist abuse, and no amount of cultural relativist bullshit can excuse it.
So, that’s that. But, it wasn’t Serbia that I wanted to rant about; what’s eating at me is what happens here, in England, and whether we can even bear to look at the issues that we know exist. Sadly, this means dragging up some issues that have been discussed to death. Well, tough.
The Luis Suarez case was easy to rationalise – he’s an ignorant foreigner, he didn’t realise he was being racist, and even if he did, none of our lot would do that. That version of events was never going to hold water for several reasons. First, the response from Liverpool, led by their manager, was a disgusting affront to anti-racism campaigns and anyone who says otherwise is deluded. Let’s recall what Kenny Dalglish said about Liverpool fans booing Patrice Evra:
“I’ve got no problem with that and if there’s a bit of banter between the teams, that’s brilliant.”
They say time’s a great healer, but that just gets worse with every reading. We haven’t got time to go through the endless articles that appeared in the mainstream press or online, attempting to rationalise what happened. When did so many people turn into linguistic experts in South American dialects? I’m sick of it, I’m sick of the excuses.
But, even if you could sweep that into the category of ‘isolated incidents’ (AKA ‘nothing to see here’), when the England Captain was caught on camera using racially abusive language at Anton Ferdinand, the whole house of cards came crashing down. Or, at least, it should have.
What actually happened was a massively protracted legal dispute that cleared John Terry of a criminal offence, followed by an FA hearing that found him guilty. Well done our FA then, right? We should be proud that they’re prepared to act. Watch and learn, Serbia.
Except that the same FA were complicit in helping Terry get the whole thing delayed long enough to ensure he could participate in the European Championships with England. The FA could have proceeded, but bottled it and decided to wait eleven months for the criminal case to proceed. Kick Out Racism, more like Kick It Into The Long Grass.
Our mighty authorities have even managed to add weight to Joey Barton’s opinions. In a recent Sunday Times interview he compared his twelve match ban for violent conduct to the recent penalties for racist abuse, “Suarez got an eight game ban, John Terry got four. So I’m Terry plus Suarez? …Where does that leave Kick Racism Out of Football?” Let me make this clear, I do not like Barton, and I do not feel sorry for him, so something has gone drastically wrong when I feel he’s got a point.
By the time the FA did eventually punish Terry, we’d already been indulged by Chelsea fans and their ‘You Know What You Are’ chant directed at Anton Ferdinand. Be serious, can we really listen to that and then tell the Serbs to clean up their act? We’ve pretty much removed monkey chanting from our stadiums. That’s great, it really is, but does anyone think racism starts and ends with monkey chants?
Bolton striker Marvin Sordell reported racist abuse during his side’s recent match at Millwall. He immediately received abusive messages from Millwall fans telling him he was only complaining because they lost.
Later that evening, on BBC’s Football League Show, ex-Millwall striker Steve Claridge explained that Millwall ‘wasn’t that sort of club’ anymore, and spoke of all the work they’ve done to eradicate that sort of thing. I’ve no reason to doubt that Millwall officials haven’t worked harder than most to confront racism, or that many Millwall fans aren’t racist, but that’s not the point.
A fan directing racist abuse at a player doesn’t automatically make the entire club racist, but that shouldn’t mean we can’t accept racism still exists.
It’s really not that hard to grasp. A racist incident doesn’t have to be a slur on everyone, but unless you acknowledge what’s really happening, it is. And that’s the crux of my frustration, there’s this feeling in England that it’s always worse elsewhere. We probably spend more time discussing racism in America than in our own country.
There is racism in England, and it’s not hard to find. It was only last year that an esteemed historian was blaming the riots in London on ‘black culture’ and talking about ‘whites becoming black’. It’s futile to think you can get rid of it entirely, but we have to accept it exists. I’m not saying that excuses what happened in Serbia. As I said at the start, I’d love to see them severely punished. But, let’s not kid ourselves about our own lot.
I’ll leave you with the responses of some of these Chelsea fans asked about the ‘You Know What You Are’ chant. One of them is clearly ashamed, some plead ignorance, and as for the others…
Related post: Why I Hate Watching England in the Pub
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