"Racism" in football is being discussed in the media.
In today's Observer footballer David James (in an article endorsed by Salma Yaqoob no less) writes about the "boiling point" of "a group of black players so incensed by the authorities' lack of action" (over John Terry).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/21/david-james-racism-in-english-football
On his Twitter microblog football pundit Stan Collymore tells us about a radio discussion on Talk Sport on the Rio Ferdinand and Kick It Out "situation" (note - in the image I have grouped the Twitter comments together).
Taking a contrarian view, on the Mirror website Brian Reade tells us "there is nowhere better in Europe for a black footballer to be playing".
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/racist-england-the-truth-is-there-is-nowhere-better-1387623
What are we to make of all this?
We are encouraged to think that the Whig progression of history is at work. That English football was once (in the 1970s) racist both institutionally and individually, both covertly and overtly, both unthinkingly and with malice aforethought. That things have "moved on" and that now only a few bad people still insist on being racist, and that these refuseniks need to be crushed with the full force of the of the FA and the criminal law.
It would be easy to go along with this view.
Especially as anyone with the indiscretion to talk publicly about "race" is immediately going to be called a "racist" and hounded until they are silenced.
However there are a number of aspects to the "racism in football" that make me uneasy.
Racism is a response to migration. The more migration a population experiences, the more racism that migration will engender. This is because mass migration is irretrievably linked to dispossession, and dispossession leads to anger and resentment among the dispossessed.
Only 2% of the population is "black" (Afro-Caribbean). And yet 40% of footballers are black. Therefore two per cent of the population has, in this sector, dispossessed thirty-eight per cent of the non-black population.
We are told that there are no essential differences between ethnic groups (indeed, it is illegal to say that one ethnic group is better than another). Therefore this statistical imbalance must represent "racism" in some form. The Kick It Out claque seems uninterested in examining the causes of what appears to be institutional racism in English football.
Note - the above image was taken from today's Observer editorial, printed in full in a Sunday newspaper where young children can see it.
When the infamous "fbc" remark was made, was it an example of a lone "bad" person being racist?
Or was it symptomatic of the inarticulate anger of the white working class being dispossessed from a sport that they created, that is part of their culture and heritage, and which heretofore has represented one of the few ways in which they can escape the poverty and hopelessness they are born into?
In today's Observer footballer David James (in an article endorsed by Salma Yaqoob no less) writes about the "boiling point" of "a group of black players so incensed by the authorities' lack of action" (over John Terry).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/21/david-james-racism-in-english-football
On his Twitter microblog football pundit Stan Collymore tells us about a radio discussion on Talk Sport on the Rio Ferdinand and Kick It Out "situation" (note - in the image I have grouped the Twitter comments together).
Taking a contrarian view, on the Mirror website Brian Reade tells us "there is nowhere better in Europe for a black footballer to be playing".
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/racist-england-the-truth-is-there-is-nowhere-better-1387623
What are we to make of all this?
We are encouraged to think that the Whig progression of history is at work. That English football was once (in the 1970s) racist both institutionally and individually, both covertly and overtly, both unthinkingly and with malice aforethought. That things have "moved on" and that now only a few bad people still insist on being racist, and that these refuseniks need to be crushed with the full force of the of the FA and the criminal law.
It would be easy to go along with this view.
Especially as anyone with the indiscretion to talk publicly about "race" is immediately going to be called a "racist" and hounded until they are silenced.
However there are a number of aspects to the "racism in football" that make me uneasy.
Racism is a response to migration. The more migration a population experiences, the more racism that migration will engender. This is because mass migration is irretrievably linked to dispossession, and dispossession leads to anger and resentment among the dispossessed.
Only 2% of the population is "black" (Afro-Caribbean). And yet 40% of footballers are black. Therefore two per cent of the population has, in this sector, dispossessed thirty-eight per cent of the non-black population.
We are told that there are no essential differences between ethnic groups (indeed, it is illegal to say that one ethnic group is better than another). Therefore this statistical imbalance must represent "racism" in some form. The Kick It Out claque seems uninterested in examining the causes of what appears to be institutional racism in English football.
Note - the above image was taken from today's Observer editorial, printed in full in a Sunday newspaper where young children can see it.
When the infamous "fbc" remark was made, was it an example of a lone "bad" person being racist?
Or was it symptomatic of the inarticulate anger of the white working class being dispossessed from a sport that they created, that is part of their culture and heritage, and which heretofore has represented one of the few ways in which they can escape the poverty and hopelessness they are born into?
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