I’m not a football fan but, like every other decent person, I was disgusted by the racist scum who attacked the three black footballers after the EURO 2020 final.
Racist Scum Have No Place in Football…or Anywhere Else
Since those footballers are high profile, the racist attacks have been widely covered in the media. Probably most households in the UK and beyond have been talking about it. And that’s as it should be. Racism should be talked about. But not just because it’s affected high-profile football players.
We should be talking about it because people from all walks of life suffer from racist attacks on a daily basis.
Racism in the NHS
People from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds make up over a fifth of the NHS workforce. The NHS would collapse without them. They deserve to be treated equally. But instead of being grateful and showing those NHS staff respect, some people treat them disgracefully.
Mr Radhakrishna Shanbhag is a senior trauma and orthopaedic surgeon in an English NHS hospital. He once prepared a patient for surgery then asked if they had any questions. The answer – “Can I have a white doctor do the operation?”
It’s shocking. Disgraceful that someone would have the audacity to even ask that but Mr Shanbhag’s experience of racism is only one of many amongst people who work in healthcare.
The trade union Unison surveyed 879 of its BAME NHS members in 2019. Out of those who had experienced racism, 34% said it was frequent or regular and 10% said it occurred daily or weekly. But the racist attacks didn’t just come from patients. Shockingly, 66% said that the racist behaviour came from their own colleagues.
Racists often call the workers names, accuse them of being terrorists, ridicule their accents and head coverings. They tell them to “go back home” or to “go back to the jungle.” They accuse them of stealing “our’ jobs. They treat them as though they are inferior and less skilled than their white colleagues. And, mirroring what happened to Mr Shanbhag, some patients ask to see another clinician instead. A white one.
Racism Happens in Every Walk of Life
I find it disgusting. It’s abhorrent. But the racism experienced by NHS staff and those footballers is a mere snapshot of what goes in everyday life for many people. Racists don’t care whether their target is a high-profile football player, a surgeon, a bus driver or a shop assistant. They will target anyone.
Don’t Make Excuses for Racism
After the football match last Sunday night, most people were quick to condemn the racists who’d attacked the players. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, some people made excuses. If you make excuses for it, you are condoning it.
Some blamed the football association for the time of the match. The game started at 8pm which meant that many fans had been drinking from early in the morning. Using alcohol as an excuse for racism is as good as condoning the behaviour.
Most people can have a few too many drinks without turning into racists. If people are racists while they’re drunk, they are also racists when they’re sober. They’ve just learned to disguise it.
Some commentators said the racist attacks had probably come from other countries because racism doesn’t really exist in England. Take your head out of the sand. Racism exists in England and in most other predominantly white countries.
I also heard one journalist say that it was just banter. It’s not and I’m sure it’s not felt that way to the people on the receiving end.
There is no excuse for racism. None.
Racist Scum Need to Be Called Out
No one race is superior to another. We all come into the world in the same way and we leave the same way. What happens in between is the problem. Racism doesn’t exist at birth. It’s a learned behaviour that needs to be called out and condemned.
Nobody should turn a blind eye to it. But that often happens.
In recent months, football players have been making a stand against racism by taking the knee at the start of matches. When the English players took the knee at the Euro matches, some English fans booed the players. Nobody needs to take the knee, but booing at people who do seems like the opposite of standing up to racism.
Journalists asked the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to condemn those who’d booed. She didn’t. Instead, she said that taking the knee was merely gesture politics and fans could boo if they wanted. That was as good as saying, ‘we’re not against racism and we don’t support those who are.’ It was as though the government was giving a green light to racist behaviour.
The UK prime minister condemned the racist attacks but his words were hollow. We have a Prime Minister who, a few years ago, wrote newspaper columns splattered with racist slurs. He compared Muslim women to letterboxes, labeled black Africans “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and wrote that Malaysian women only go to university “to find men to marry.”
Did he apologise? No. He said his words were taken out of context. Really? You can’t say things like that and then blame people for taking your words out of context.
There is No Place in the World for Racist Scum
I’m not, and never have been, a racist. Nor are my family or friends. But not being a racist isn’t enough. Every person who isn’t a racist needs to stand up and call out racist behaviour. If we stay quiet just because we wouldn’t do it ourselves, we are not condemning it. And we must condemn racism. We must be anti-racists.
We must show racist scum that there is no place for them in the world.