Racism: Great Britain’s unfinished business
The events of that followed the lost penalties by England in the Euro Cup 2020 gave life and meaning to kneeling on the pitch. If anything good came out the horrendous racial abuse, it was that black players kneeling was not ‘gesture politics’ but the protest against racism. This left an egg over the faces of the likes of Priti Patel, the British Home Secretary, who could condemn another gesture-booing by English fans, or monkey noises-but thought kneeling is a more provocative gesture. It did worse for Boris Johnson, caught ‘pants down’, he scrambled for a pen and paper early the next morning to write a ‘shame on you’ statement. But in the classic British fashion, this was ‘washing off the blood at the crime scene before the police arrived,’ as if nothing really happened. But this debate just wont go away. The players have been right all along. they were not playing the race card. They have experienced racism off and on court, and it happened again on the Euro 2020 Final for everyone to see.
Football always brings the worst of England fans, in the good and bad days. The misbehavior of these fans can only be rivalled by Hungarian fans who are notorious racists. I think fans basically have this odd way of thinking that they can be better than the coach and the player when they see a mistake happens. Football is supposed to happen in the perfect sense, forget you had mental health issues, or an injury, or in this case you are racially abused repeatedly. As has been with the Fantastic Four, as am now calling them- Rashford, Sterling, Sancho, Saka. There has been systemic racism in Britain. Not according to the British Government though, who flatly denied any kind of racism. There has been racism in the Firm. That’s a step too far some might say, and Meghan Markle should not be believed. She is a liar, according to Piers Morgan, who was quick to defend the black players when all that has been hidden all along was finally exposed. The acts against the black players were indefensible since they never happened behind closed doors in the halls of the palace or leaked to the press. Social media was the public place where the racist bile was trending from all over the world where English fans happen to reside. Whether or not it came from Sydney or Manchester, it was racist.
I know at 23, 21, or 19, I had no grips on my life, let alone stand on the world stage to execute a penalty. I wasn’t very confident to speak for myself or for others. Neither did I feel any pressure from the world, because I never gave myself to the world in any way. It was different for the three English players. They felt the whole weight of the nation and team on their shoulders. This wasn’t a mean fete. They ought to be applauded for their courage and effort to contribute to the team this far. Somehow I am grateful that the events turned out exactly this way if only to expose the racism of English fans, and the government’s tone deaf attitude towards systemic racism. Someone said that when they win, they are British, but when they lose they are black. This is the diabolic attitude of racists, but there is more. For someone to be accepted, you have to show exceptional talent all the time. The black player or person in any field, science, art, sports, is not supposed to trip. They are treated like robots, and no mistakes are allowed. They work the most amount of hours, poorly paid and exposed to hazards that their pension cannot even pay for when they get sick. This is the systemic undermining of black people, and society does not tire to abuse people of color.
Unfortunately, football is not the last frontier of racism in sports or society as a whole. But specifically in sports, we have seen the exhaustion of Naomi Osaka, Lebron James, Lewis Hamilton, and I might say Marcus Rashford, and how it has affected their overall 2021 season. These players have had burn out fighting on two battle fronts, on the field, and for the Black Lives Matter movement. It could have easier for them to just ignore what is happening to black people because they got privilege that most don’t have, but they chose this as their cause. And no one even talks about the emotional and mental health toll that social media trolls and racists have on their victims. The fact that black players win and make money is often a trigger for these racists, to celebrate their failures because they choose causes they were uncomfortable with. Just speaking against racism and kneeling against police brutality has attracted culture wars that makes these stars targets of racial abuse because they are the faces against injustice.
If there is a baseline argument to be had is the contribution of Great Britain to the racism that we deal with in the 21st Century. Racism might as old as mankind but the empires of dominance and oppression have perpetuated it, because there had to be servants to serve the masters. You either had to be very poor, or indeed black to fit the servant category. You had to be rich and royal to be master of all. This gives us the dated role of the British Monarchy in perpetuating racism in its conquest around the world way before there was state premiership. The suffering and oppression by royal descendants inflicted on my great grand parents-some who fought in Burma but were never medaled because they were black- is something that the likes of Prince Harry, is conscious about, but is silent, because it would undo his whole existence, though he chooses now to be on the right side of history. But most of the British public have never come to this level of consciousness, and as soon as Brexit started, the likes of Boris Johnson accused President Obama of being anti-British, because of his Kenyan ancestry. Laughable to say the least, as if the British brought good tidings to the African continent and they were never appreciated. No, the British brought their greed, fear, death, and oppression to the African continent, with their forceful stay necessitating a genocide against resisting ethnic groups in countries like Kenya, with over 50,000 or more people killed in these massacres. So the British people resisting the anti-racism movement have yet to come to terms with their past and present actions against black people. The bile against Saka, Marcus, and Sancho only brought things full circle, an empire that built itself oppressing others and mostly black people, and never apologized for it. Apologizing would mean admitting past and present sins, and paying for lives harmed. Great Britain will never take the apology tour, it will open up a can of worms that will never stop giving because there’s a lot to deal with. Still, there is no day of reckoning any time soon with regard to racism is Britain. It’s unfinished business.
