We are right to condemn racism, but need to do so much more!
The racist abuse directed at three wonderful English footballers is abhorrent, and I echo the resounding condemnation that is coming from all quarters. Throughout the tournament, including the final, the team have represented the diverse qualities of the country supremely, and I am proud of their performance, their cohesion and their representation of England.
I stand with the whole team and #SayNoToRacism but perhaps more importantly:
I stand with?#Saka
I stand with? #Rashford
I stand with? #Sancho
The racial abuse is so disgraceful, we should be shocked, but sadly this just isn’t the case. As vile as the comments may be, this is nothing new. The former England Rugby International, Ugo Monye, who was at the game, reflected on what he was thinking in the run-up to the penalty shoot-out, and he described a deep inner feeling that:
If one of the black lads misses a penalty, I know what’s coming!
The England midfielder, Jude Bellingham, commented:
As for the racism, hurtful but not surprising. Will never get bored of saying that more needs to be done. Educate and control the platforms.
And whilst we need to focus on the problem in this country, there is also precedent if you roll back to the last World Cup, when Germany went out at the group stages. Two players of Turkish descent were made the scapegoats for their failure, leading to the infamous words of one of them, Mesut ?zil, who said that:
领英推荐
I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose.
This last quote may seem tangential as the English footballers are not immigrants and were all born in this country, but I think this last point is prescient as it highlights how we can be superficially welcoming and inclusive in the good times, but can so quickly see difference and blame when things go wrong. And whilst it is a minority who spill over into dishing out the horrible abuse that we have seen, I fear that we may be over-simplifying things by just dismissing these racists. The comments and opinions of this minority are disgusting and their prejudice is overt, but many of the rest of us have unconscious biases that we manage to keep bubbling below the surface or a lack of understanding on how others feel.
Many years ago, Martin Luther King wrote a letter from a Birmingham jail, in which he said that the real barriers to progress were not the extremists:
... but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
He went on to say that:
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
?So whilst we are right to quickly condemn the racist minority, how can we be sure that we are not unwittingly being one of those white moderates with good will but shallow understanding? Do we truly appreciate why Ugo Monye is watching a penalty shoot-out with the perspective he shared? Do we really know what it feels like to be not only the victim of overt racism, but to constantly experience the micro-aggressions, the unconscious biases and the subtle, understated prejudices that we are probably not so quick to challenge? Do we really appreciate just how bad these behaviours are making people feel?
Calling out this vile racism is right, but it is also simple. We should do it, but it should not stop us from opening a broader dialogue. We should be discussing racism in its full uncomfortable complexity, where we all subject ourselves to a harsh dose of introspection and challenge the ways we think and behave. Proper engaging discussion can drive truth, it will help to overcome our shallow understanding that Martin Luther King highlighted and lead to the education that Jude Bellingham is asking for. Let’s make it happen!
James Wyatt, a passionate advocate of the high-quality discussions that can make the world a better place and author of The Art of Discussion.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Discussion-Have-Better-Conversations/dp/1913568989/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+art+of+discussion&qid=1626253249&sr=8-1