By Dr3
There's been an uptick inalleged racist abuse towards players in recent months in European football. It's been said but it bears repeating; football is an extension of greater society. It doesn't exist as some sort of panacea. It's not a wonderland of fairness and meritocracy. That is the pipedream of a child, or a people in denial with little to no empathy. Whatever your version world over of Math 101, you learned about sets and subsets. All walks of life; from the police departments, to the housing boards, to the education boards and schools, your occupation, to the gas station workers, are subsets of our society. Whatever your journey in life, you've also learned that life is anything but fair, at least as the word was taught to us as children. Racism exists everywhere.
Correcting racism or any harmful bias requires personal accountability and is something that people quite frankly are horrible at doing. Defense, especially in response to some sort of fear, seems to be our one shared innate instinct across cultures and status as well. A conversation about a racist thought or act by a person, quickly devolves into the entirely more abstract, more defensive, less accountable, conversation about that person being 'a racist'. Imagine murdering someone for the 'first time' in your life. There's no doubt that you murdered them. You did it, down to the fitted bloody gloves. But is there degree or nuance around you being a murderer?
Most racist incidents in European football have involved black players. It's not a coincidence. It's a majority non-black world in Europe, for which trading in African slaves was ubiquitous at some point in the past. It's also a non-black world in which being 'a racist' elicits imagery of Nazism. It does not involve the imagery of a plantation, a ship of human beings in chains and feces, ormobs regular non-black citizens mobilizing to lynch or otherwise terrorize black people. It does not elicit imagery of the victims of terror being ascribed with the traits of the terrorists themselves; imagine the people who were in bondage, and raped, and killed, and continue to be oppressed, being more associated with terror upon fellow humans than the terrorists/oppressors themselves. It does not elicit imagery of intentional legislated unequal access to education, or health, as a subset of access to wealth, post-slavery.
If you add to this, a general apathy, and now a dilution of integrity (I believe it's called post-truth), then it's no wonder it seems that racism is back, like it never left. It's an ironic time that we live in. We want to be accepting of more; beyond conventional right's and wrong's. We want to do away with these traditional dichotomies. But borne out of this need to not define things in the old binary way, there's also been a denunciation of such a thing as truth, giving air to the fire of extremism. Removing nuance in the process along the way somehow ("Cancel Culture"). Creating even larger dichotomies than there have been for quite some time. Everything is valid and invalid with equal merit. All insults are created equal. Everything is acceptable and unacceptable with the greatest malevolence. Imagine demanding an apology at the suggestion that one of you among the 60,000 in a stadium may have made racist chants towards a player. Imagine it for second. Could it be because of how repulsive it is, to be thought of as 'a racist'? The ignominy of being potentially labelled a racist matters more than potentially being racially abused.
Empathy and accountability. One for allaying fear of being labelled, and one for genuinely taking steps to learning and doing better. Instead of being fearful of what players walking off the football field could mean for sport, maybe consider that people go to war for months and have PTSD that affect their life and their children's lives for at least a couple generations. Do you think the descendants of slaves and those witnessing family members' or hearing about and experiencing any number of injustices may have PTSD related issues in raising their children? Is it hard to imagine what being reminded of your perceived class as a subhuman may do to a person maybe trying to raise a generation with hope? Is it really unjust that 'non-blacks' be labelled as having been 'racist' towards 'blacks' both today and in the past as a collective?
So no, there's not a racism "in football". But football can take personal accountability through empathy. It's not difficult to be accountable if you can stifle your pity for the 'non-racists'. Stifle the urge to sabotage actually doing something by virtue of it's difficulty in a societal context. Two broad ideas; affect points, and close stadiums. That's it. There's fan personal accountability as well. If you hear someone in a stadium making racist chants, tell them to shut up, or go tell an authority figure. Record it on your phone and upload it (anonymously if you must) to YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and the list goes on forever. For the authorities it's even simpler. If a club does not investigate racism and punish accordingly (and this should be severe; lifetime bans etc) based on your established guidelines, you will. If evidence is found, automatic stadium closure for two games, and an automatic 3 - 0 loss for the team for the matches with the incidents. Repeat offenses result in point deductions in addition to original punishment. It's not harsh. It's ridiculous to think that it is harsh. How readily are managers punished for their words? Does it take actual deaths in a stadium to bring action? There's the media too. Beyond enjoying the post-truth times with cheap clicks and caricaturing, the media can actually put pressure on the authorities to do more in a way no one else can. It's not "alleged" if you have a video of it, why so cautious? How could the same journalists that seem to enjoy a Manager being fired, or enjoy labeling players as flops, struggle to decisively label something as racist? It does not matter that it's a "handful" of people amongst a sea of 'non-racists'. It should not be spoken about for one week then shelved. It didn't go away. Language matters in beseeching action. Racism didn't sprout into existence out of nothing. It's not going to disappear by conversations and 'education' instantaneously either. It takes all people choosing, continuously, to be accountable for ending racism through their actions. Football is better placed than general society for exhorting that choice.
Want more? Go ahead and SUBSCRIBE to Football Rehab!
 |
| German player Anthony Rudiger |
There's been an uptick in
Correcting racism or any harmful bias requires personal accountability and is something that people quite frankly are horrible at doing. Defense, especially in response to some sort of fear, seems to be our one shared innate instinct across cultures and status as well. A conversation about a racist thought or act by a person, quickly devolves into the entirely more abstract, more defensive, less accountable, conversation about that person being 'a racist'. Imagine murdering someone for the 'first time' in your life. There's no doubt that you murdered them. You did it, down to the fitted bloody gloves. But is there degree or nuance around you being a murderer?
Most racist incidents in European football have involved black players. It's not a coincidence. It's a majority non-black world in Europe, for which trading in African slaves was ubiquitous at some point in the past. It's also a non-black world in which being 'a racist' elicits imagery of Nazism. It does not involve the imagery of a plantation, a ship of human beings in chains and feces, or
If you add to this, a general apathy, and now a dilution of integrity (I believe it's called post-truth), then it's no wonder it seems that racism is back, like it never left. It's an ironic time that we live in. We want to be accepting of more; beyond conventional right's and wrong's. We want to do away with these traditional dichotomies. But borne out of this need to not define things in the old binary way, there's also been a denunciation of such a thing as truth, giving air to the fire of extremism. Removing nuance in the process along the way somehow ("Cancel Culture"). Creating even larger dichotomies than there have been for quite some time. Everything is valid and invalid with equal merit. All insults are created equal. Everything is acceptable and unacceptable with the greatest malevolence. Imagine demanding an apology at the suggestion that one of you among the 60,000 in a stadium may have made racist chants towards a player. Imagine it for second. Could it be because of how repulsive it is, to be thought of as 'a racist'? The ignominy of being potentially labelled a racist matters more than potentially being racially abused.
Empathy and accountability. One for allaying fear of being labelled, and one for genuinely taking steps to learning and doing better. Instead of being fearful of what players walking off the football field could mean for sport, maybe consider that people go to war for months and have PTSD that affect their life and their children's lives for at least a couple generations. Do you think the descendants of slaves and those witnessing family members' or hearing about and experiencing any number of injustices may have PTSD related issues in raising their children? Is it hard to imagine what being reminded of your perceived class as a subhuman may do to a person maybe trying to raise a generation with hope? Is it really unjust that 'non-blacks' be labelled as having been 'racist' towards 'blacks' both today and in the past as a collective?
So no, there's not a racism "in football". But football can take personal accountability through empathy. It's not difficult to be accountable if you can stifle your pity for the 'non-racists'. Stifle the urge to sabotage actually doing something by virtue of it's difficulty in a societal context. Two broad ideas; affect points, and close stadiums. That's it. There's fan personal accountability as well. If you hear someone in a stadium making racist chants, tell them to shut up, or go tell an authority figure. Record it on your phone and upload it (anonymously if you must) to YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and the list goes on forever. For the authorities it's even simpler. If a club does not investigate racism and punish accordingly (and this should be severe; lifetime bans etc) based on your established guidelines, you will. If evidence is found, automatic stadium closure for two games, and an automatic 3 - 0 loss for the team for the matches with the incidents. Repeat offenses result in point deductions in addition to original punishment. It's not harsh. It's ridiculous to think that it is harsh. How readily are managers punished for their words? Does it take actual deaths in a stadium to bring action? There's the media too. Beyond enjoying the post-truth times with cheap clicks and caricaturing, the media can actually put pressure on the authorities to do more in a way no one else can. It's not "alleged" if you have a video of it, why so cautious? How could the same journalists that seem to enjoy a Manager being fired, or enjoy labeling players as flops, struggle to decisively label something as racist? It does not matter that it's a "handful" of people amongst a sea of 'non-racists'. It should not be spoken about for one week then shelved. It didn't go away. Language matters in beseeching action. Racism didn't sprout into existence out of nothing. It's not going to disappear by conversations and 'education' instantaneously either. It takes all people choosing, continuously, to be accountable for ending racism through their actions. Football is better placed than general society for exhorting that choice.
Want more? Go ahead and SUBSCRIBE to Football Rehab!
Comments
Post a Comment