Pro Sport Doesn’t Have the Monopoly on Racism

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Back when I was first working in England, I was walking home from the tube station after midnight, and saw five black men walking in my direction. Having lived in L.A. for 20 years by this time, I immediately went into protective mode, but as I heard their voices and their distinct British accents, I calmed down, saying to myself, “Well, these black people don’t necessarily hate white people,” and we passed each other without incident. Maybe they didn’t hate white people then, but given the high profile racism has recently taken in UK, from the long overdue trial of the 1993 murder of Steven Lawrence by racist thugs to the stupid statement by Sepp Blatter, the president of the Football Association, who would blame black people for hating us now?

First of all, the name Sepp Blatter sounds like a urinary infection, but there are worse things about him than his name. Being forced to comment on an incident where a white player had called an opposing black player a “black cunt,” on the field during a match, Blatter issued this blather: “The one who is affected, he should say this is a game…. and at the end of the game, we shake hands.” Yep, and then it’s all forgotten. Bad enough that a player called another a cunt, but with the word black, you’ve thrown it into another dimension. So far, despite a half-assed apology after additional pressure to step down, Blatter remains at his post. Flashback to 1987 in the US, when Los Angeles Dodger general manager Al Campanis gave ill-advised, poorly researched responses when asked why there were still no blacks in executive positions in baseball. Since baseball was celebrating the 40th anniversary of Major League integration, Campanis’ comments showed that not much progress had been made after all, and he was forced to step down within 48 hours, despite having been involved in negotiating Jackie Robinson’s 1947 Major League debut. Sepp Blatter comes up a few years and a few merits shy of what Campanis accomplished, yet he’s still around.

I’ve been encountering racism on a smaller but no less irresponsible scale in my little burb of Dagenham, and even though the racist British National Party (BNP) was soundly defeated in the last election, their legacy remains alive. This shouldn’t be surprising, since the BNP was based in the neighboring town of Barking. I knew what I’d be dealing with years ago, when I noticed an influx of African and Asian students at my then-stepson’s primary school followed by an exodus of white students whose families left the area in response. I dismissed it as ignorance, and good riddance to them.

Fast forward to 2011, and it seems I’m encountering that sort of stupidity on a near-weekly basis. A lady at the corner shop chose to comment on the state of Dagenham, “excusing” her use of profanity by telling me the town’s become a “shit-hole,” yet not feeling there’s anything wrong with blaming the town’s decline on “all the Pakis.” The following week, the same shop was displaying a CCTV photo of two robbery suspects, who were black, and when I showed concern about the shop’s safety, the same lady launched into a tirade about “Why don’t they go back where they came from?” Of course, they were probably born and raised in Britain, but that was beside her point. Then on Monday this week, at the charity shop where I work a few hours a week as a volunteer, a black customer was having a disagreement with the shop’s manager over a price. That was apparently enough for some near-toothless old white geezer to give an aside to me, “That’s typical of them,” as though I looked like someone who’d agree.

I wish I could find something funny in these “witticisms,” but there’s nothing that comes to mind. I also wish there was an immediate solution to the problem, maybe force-feeding some of these people a little bit of education, but it’s hard to undo years of misinformation. It seems likely that I’ll be leaving Dagenham by February or March, which might alleviate my problem of having to deal with these idiots, but it would be nice to leave Essex without wishing that it would self-destruct. Meantime, I’ll foolishly look and wish for the best in people.

November 19th, 2011



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