Let us assume that all those do-gooders who are so very concerned about mankind (while only paying lip-service to a ‘trend’ that seems worth exploiting for their own advancement) have a tiny remnant of human decency left and, for once, actually mean what they say and not only say what others want to hear.
Let us further assume that the large group of those who are mentally differently abled (i.e. either don’t have a clue or don’t give a hoot), actually do give a damn, for a change, and jump on the bandwagon of political correctness opportunism – simply because it is the ‘flavor of the day’. Or, indeed, it appears to be a promising proposition that allows to put oneself in the best possible light and wash away one’s own questionable conduct.
Let us assume further, that both groups – who jointly constitute about 99.46% of the population in the fabulous West we live in – are so very void of any and all hypocrisy (sic!) that they actually kick themselves into some staggering motion and miraculously agree to a consensus on how to fight the racists whose brains were either amputated in early childhood (only to leave ‘white trash’ behind), or who merely follow the historic examples of their fathers and forefathers and regard anybody who is non-white as an aberration of nature.
The motivations are manifold, and they are usually as dishonest as those same people who pretend to be heroes and heroines in the never-ending fight for equal rights (‘You know, some of my best friends are black’. Yeah right).
Ever since Martin Luther King had a dream, the majority found means and ways to destroy it as it was muttered. The pretext of a half-white US President did nothing for race relations, other than further damage the standing of black people in America and precipitate the campaign to lock up as many young black men as humanly possible in privatized US jails where they are treated worse than a mongrel dog in any British RSPCA shelter. There is method to this madness.
Racism, it is alive and well. It is rampant in American society, possibly more than ever, and it is disgustingly alive and well in post-colonial Great Britain. It is alive in Central Europe, the Middle East, the so very-enlightened Western Europe, and virtually anywhere you go.
Fed by the collective guilt that results from the atrocities of a colonial past where slavery was only very slowly ‘Wilberforced-out’, English society is at pains to explain itself and continues to be rampantly racist. The only ‘modern’ twist is this: it happens less overtly, these days than in the past (except if you are in the lovely countryside), but it occurs covertly all the time and everywhere.
When London taxis fly past a well-dressed young woman who tries to flag them down without success, you know she is black; when an idiot salesman in a Bond Street fashion store rudely asks whether the black woman is aware of the price of the scarf before she can even say a word, you know what it is all about; when an English ‘journalist’ refers to the Qatari bidders as “sand-n(-word)”, you know who he is and where he is coming from; when young black students are racially profiled because they dare walk through Mayfair, it is called reality check; and when a black footballer is the target of monkey-chants because he just scored – or simply because he exists – then even the dimmest of bystanders might take note of a reality that is as rampant as it is degrading, disgusting yet typical for a society in serious decay.
Times of socio-economic troubles have never been conducive to tolerance. And it is sad enough that one needs to call for tolerance when the only difference between races is the colour of their skin.
Therefore, it is perfectly idiotic to claim that ‘football has a racism problem’. Without context, it does not. It does not more or less than any other segment of society. If football does have a racism problem – which of course it does in absolute terms – then it is but a reflection of society as a whole. Any society. But the societies that were built on and by slaves continue to be the worst. And societies where education takes second place after ‘sitting-on-a-sofa-with-a-six-pack-of-beer-watching-the- Jeremy-Kyle show’, are particularly prone to having a large segment of their citizens being moronic racists, than those where education is a desirable goal and a means to progress and improve oneself.
The calls by so many, recently, for harsher action against racism in football are pretty hollow. Many of those who sit in governing bodies and dare open their stupid mouths in a display of totally dishonest outrage, qualified black members of their own administration as ‘(n-word)’ behind closed doors. And still do. As long as this dishonesty, hypocrisy and retardedness prevails inside football at its highest levels and in society as a whole, there will never be meaningful change.
To successfully combat racism – be that in football or anywhere else – parenting and education are the solution, not punishment and two-faced declarations by hypocrites and hypocritical politicians (I know, same thing).
Yet punishment there must be, of course. Punishment is only useful in the short term and until such time as societies have changed and matured – which will take another 50 years at least. The kind of lame punishment meted out by the likes of UEFA and FIFA is of course a joke. Fines of €2000 here, €8000 there are insults, not remedies. The most recent proposals by FIFA to deduct points and relegate clubs is a move in the right direction. But that is not enough.
Naming and shaming appears to be a proper response: plastering the face and full address of a racist pig on FIFA’s, UEFA’s, any FA’s website would be a good and meaningful start. Banning those idiots from every football game in the world, making sure that they become outcasts of society is what is needed.
Some claim that there is hardly any, if any, racism today. Some even say that football is one of the few places where it still exists.
If that were true, there would be no need for anti-racism legislation, would there?
Last time we checked, every half-way civilized European country – including the EU which has five such Directives plus the Charter of Fundamental Rights – has its Race Relations Act (in the UK it is the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 that joins earlier Acts). So does Russia, Hong Kong and many other states.
And if that is so, and if some cretins still claim that there are no race issues (be that in football or elsewhere) in modern societies, then ask this question: ‘Why is there legislation against something that does not exist?’
It is all a lot of two-faced, hypocritical and dishonest baloney. But it sounds good to all of those holier-than-thou-moralists to blame football and swipe the real trouble under the carpet of colonial history, doesn’t it? It won’t work. At least some people are not stupid enough to swallow the lies anymore.