Racism in English football

[Amor de Cosmos]

Not sure where this originates but I found it on a Fulham site:

Chelsea fan, Gary Filth, 58, of Carshalton, will appear in court on Monday, charged with being an absolute cliché. Filth has vowed to clear his name after footage of him allegedly racially abusing Manchester City star, Raheem Sterling appeared on Match of the Day. His Spokesman, former Chelsea idol, John Terry QC, Captain, Leader and Anti-Apartheid Legend said, "Gary doesn't have a racist bone in his body. He's got a black bloke living down his street, he's got a black postman and he loves UB40. As you can imagine, he's very, very angry about the media attention; in fact he's angry about everything. He's a passionate Chelsea fan, which is why at the age of 58, he's screaming abuse in the face of a bloke less than half his age over a nothing incident. People being judgmental need to remember that without people like Gary, there'd have been nobody in the ground before Matthew Harding turned-up. He's proper Chelsea and I hope the club don't throw him under the bus just because Sterling's misheard something and some lip reader's stitched the club up again."

[Flynnie]

Really, that missed me apart from the odd post on OTF and a short feature on Second Captains podcast (which is very good by the way).

Go on Reddit, the original Sterling thread is about 10:1 pro-Sterling. With all due respect to Garcia* and Second Captains, which is indeed excellent, they’re not such brilliantly original thinkers on an issue like Sterling to swim against the entire tide. They had fellow travellers.

*where is the lad? He seemed to have packed it in when the bulletin board briefly became unusable but that was yonks ago now.

[Nefertiti2]

Sterling

https://twitter.com/steve_graves/status/875442041689395202

https://twitter.com/howiehok3434/status/1002092839038279680

[Patrick Thistle]

Chelsea have suspended 4 "fans" while under investigation.

I hope they do throw them under the bus. Examples need to be made.

[ursus arctos]

They could just hand them over to Sergio Ramos

[Sean of the Shed]

Chelsea have suspended 4 "fans" while under investigation.

I hope they do throw them under the bus. Examples need to be made.

That would be good but not enough. If Chelsea were to just punish the fans involved and think that would be enough to relinquish them of any further responsibility then they would be missing the bigger picture. Chelsea have previous with regard to racism, not only with fans but players too. They need to accept that there is a culture within the club that needs addressing and take responsibility for doing so.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/SkySportsMNF/status/1072209394622980097

Gary Neville on Raheem Sterling.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I really do resent the idea that because you criticise Sterling or any other black player that automatically makes you a racist.

It doesn't. This kind of nonsense, on the other hand...

[Tactical Genius]

I get where you're coming from, and I reckon that he's going to have to live the rest of his life like Jesus, and even living like jesus got him killed.....

That's a good line, I might use that one day......

And definitely the Daily Mail and the like aren't going to change their essential nature soon. But they've had to change quite a lot over the last couple of years largely due to a variety of factors out of their control. The Immolation of the News of the World being a big part of it.

No, they will lay low and lick their wounds and they will be back, people said the same thing about News International after the hacking stories. They are still in business, just more careful now.

The thing that ultimately stands out about Sterling is that out of virtually all of the players in the premier league, the Newspapers are treating him like he was a Golden Generation player when the News of the World was at its peak. If this was 10 years ago then this would have completely passed without comment, because it would be hidden in a bunch of stories hammering five or six other players, who while often white, were definitely working class.

Were there stories lambasting the golden generation whilst on the same page lauding other non-golden generation players for doing exactly the same thing, i seriously doubt it.?

Essentially the only way this plays out well or neutral for sterling is if he effectively becomes too powerful for them to touch. The thing is that I think this is a definite possibility. It's not going to change the nature of the british press, and I don't know if it's going to be reflective of broader trends in society, but at this point they'd be well advised to back away from this.

The only way this plays out is if his fellow black players come out and stand shoulder to shoulder with him. If they stand on the block and refuse to talk to the written press until their attitude is changed. This shit continues as people know there is no sanction for such behaviour and will have others in the wider community try to excuse and water down their behaviour.

[Tactical Genius]

https://twitter.com/SkySportsMNF/status/1072209394622980097

Gary Neville on Raheem Sterling.

I lasted about 3 minutes on that and gave up. GNev knew the tone was racist and rather than speak up, just patted Sterling on the back and said "chin up mate"...... and people are congratulating him for coming out 3 and a half years later and admitting he should have done more at the time or at any fucking time since........

[Nefertiti2]

yes, thats about the size of it,

[Tactical Genius]

I really do resent the idea that because you criticise Sterling or any other black player that automatically makes you a racist.

It doesn't. This kind of nonsense, on the other hand...

Bravo, well said TonTon

[anton pulisov]

Collection of Raheem Sterling headlines in the gutter press.

He either spends too much money, or doesn't spend enough, depending on the headline.

[jwdd27]

One of the accused fans is claiming he called Sterling a "Manc cunt" rather than a black cunt.

Hmm. Sterling isn't really a Manc, is he? Would he have called Aguero a Manc?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

One of the accused fans is claiming he called Sterling a "Manc cunt" rather than a black cunt.

Hmm. Sterling isn't really a Manc, is he? Would he have called Aguero a Manc?

Calling someone a "Manc" as a form of abuse is a hate crime as well according to the law, so they can bang him up for that instead.

[Tactical Genius]

Collection of Raheem Sterling headlines in the gutter press.

He either spends too much money, or doesn't spend enough, depending on the headline.

Note the number of Sun articles Berbaslug. They are going after and harassing certain people despite the News of the world debacle.
Also not the number of non daily mail articles so this cannot just be consigned to a single racist newspaper which is the narrative some are trying to frame.

A couple more things.
I have said on here in the past that I could never support the England team and can never take seriously a black man wearing an England shirt. Well this is why.

Secondly, I am not Southgate's biggest supporter, but I have to give him a lot of respect for backing his players and calling out this bullshit which is a big difference from the soft-shoeing of his predecessors. It might be why they are performing for him...

Thirdly, be aware that when Sterling is being castigated in the media, he is really being used as a metaphor for all black men in classic dog whistle terms. It is similar to those 1930's Nazi films where they kept showing jews and rats in the same from.

Jew = Rat
Rat = Jew

on and on so that whenever you saw Jew, you thought Rat and when you saw a Rat you thought Jew and whenever you thought of either you think of Vermin that needed to be exterminated for the common good.
So whenever a black person is shot or choked to death by the police, you subliminally shrug your shoulders and console yourself that its for the common good.

[Nefertiti2]

The Sun responds:

https://twitter.com/ankaman616/status/1072447659842113536?s=21

Agree with you about Southgate. TG.

[EIM]

One of the accused fans is claiming he called Sterling a "Manc cunt" rather than a black cunt.

Hmm. Sterling isn't really a Manc, is he? Would he have called Aguero a Manc?

I called Suarez a Scouse bastard enough times.

[Patrick Thistle]

Ah, The Sun, there. Racist white people get very upset when accused of racism don't they.

[EIM]

"Black people, Asian people... normal people."

https://twitter.com/AmpliaLaFamilia/...224063499?s=19

[DCI Harry Batt]

I recall a Liverpool fan calling Hans Segers a "fucking cockney cunt", which we found very funny at the time.

[Toby Gymshorts]

"Black people, Asian people... normal people."

https://twitter.com/AmpliaLaFamilia/...224063499?s=19

"Chris Haldane" is a special kind of prick, isn't he?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Were there stories lambasting the golden generation whilst on the same page lauding other non-golden generation players for doing exactly the same thing, i seriously doubt it.?

Possibly. but there's two things going on here. There's the way that the English media in general portray black people, (Which is what the instagram post is directly about) which is straight down the line structural racism. But there's also the way that the UK media has decided to particularly portray the best black english player, in a way that they simply don't target anyone else any more. They are dealing with him uniquely with broadly the same level of scrutiny, and the same tactics that they used to regularly use in the past against a variety of players, but that they have dropped. But with one glaring exception. (two actually when you think about how differently things might have worked out for Jamie Vardy if he had been born 10 years earlier and had the same life) The Racism here isn't so much in the tactics, (which are also racist) as it's in the strategy. It's less about the individual stories, and more about the narrowly focused campaign of insane bullshit continuously hurled at the best black english player, entirely because he is a black, working class migrant.

Sterling has focused on the Structural racism in a really deft and unarguable way, and taken himself out of his statement, which simultaneously allows him to make an argument to which there is no real response, but it also allows other people to make the point about the way that he is personally treated. Other people making this case on his behalf makes it difficult to raise even an ad hominem defence.

The only way this plays out is if his fellow black players come out and stand shoulder to shoulder with him. If they stand on the block and refuse to talk to the written press until their attitude is changed. This shit continues as people know there is no sanction for such behaviour and will have others in the wider community try to excuse and water down their behaviour.

You see I don't know about this. This has effectively reached the point where if someone writes another one of those shitty stories about Raheem sterling, the social media storm is going to be about them, not raheem sterling. The Next person to write a shitty article about Raheem Sterling's exceedingly dull personal life is going to have to leave twitter. Shitting on sterling used to be a costless pastime. I don't think that is necessarily true any more. This is a large part why I think that the people like John Barnes were treating this almost as a given, and focusing on wider issues of structural racism. The Sun can be quietened on the issue of sterling by social media bullying, Fixing the other side of things is going to take more time. The mechanisms have been fundamentally ingrained in british society, since back when there was only a handful of black people in London, bristol and liverpool. and it's been applied to every group of migrants to the UK in their time. It was primarily us for centuries, but we're white, and that means that after a generation or two you can't tell any more, and once the ceasefire started and Ireland started to become richer than the UK, then it kind of just stopped. It will be back though, especially when everyone realizes that we've ruined brexit.

This is all going to get a lot worse before it gets any better, but If people are prepared to be as direct and aggressive in their response as raheem sterling was, then there is some hope.

[Bored Of Education]

"Black people, Asian people... normal people."

https://twitter.com/AmpliaLaFamilia/...224063499?s=19

That's a pretty poor tweet, actually. For a start, at no point, does he say "My kids go to school with Indian people, black people and normal people", he says something slightly muffled which might be 'from' or 'for' instead of 'with' and 'and'. It sounds to me like he is saying "Our kids, my kids go to school with different Indian people, for/from black people, for/from normal people". Bearing in mind this is also a second language for him, it is scratching around trying to make a point from that quote especially out of context.

[Toby Gymshorts]

"Normal people".

What's not to get?