It saddens me to say it, but no one should be surprised at the outburst of racist abuse suffered by Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bakayo Saka following England’s defeat by Italy on Sunday night. There had already been reports of the constant stream of racist invective directed at black team members throughout the tournament. While the rest of us were enjoying the feelgood factor of seeing an England men’s team succeed like no other has done since 1966, there were some who felt only bitterness at the sight of a multiracial expression of Englishness being lauded in the media.
Shamefully, the belligerent, bigoted few – and they are a few – felt justified in their prejudices because of the permissive signals they were given by politicians and pundits who were outraged that the team should seek to highlight the abuse suffered by people of colour. By taking a knee in solidarity with the victims of racism, the England team were forcing us to confront something many people in this country would rather not talk about.
Camilla Tominey expressed this preference for blinkers clearly in the Times on 9th July in an article headlined ‘The Euros have destroyed the Leftist myth of a backward, racist England’. One would hope that she and all those who questioned the validity of the players taking a knee now understand the vicious magnitude of the racism that our fellow citizens of colour face on a day to day basis.
Priti Patel’s comments in support of the boo boys and the failure of the Prime Minister to condemn their actions were also predictable. We live in a country where a TV station was recently launched with the specific aim of waging a ‘war on woke’. Although the term is never defined, it is clear from the programming that what GB News is at war with is empathy.
It’s easy to dismiss the ‘culture war’ agenda that turns a trivial matter like the removal of a picture of the Queen from a student’s common room into front page outrage, but we ignore it at our peril. Look closely at the battles that the culture warriors seek to stir up and you’ll see a white heterosexual status quo actively fighting a rearguard action against the progress we have made towards an inclusive, diverse society.
And we have made progress. A recent poll revealed that just 10% believe that you have to be white to be English, a number that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago. But the events of the past 48 hours prove that we can take none of it for granted. Racism can’t be defeated by a feelgood factor. It takes concerted efforts by the majority of fair-minded citizens to marginalise and ultimately change the mindset of the bigoted minority.
How do we do that? Well the first step is to refuse to cede the floor to the racists. It’s understandable that people looking at the behaviour of those few England fans would shake their heads and want nothing to do with the English identity, but that would be to betray the legacy of those lads who have shown us a different vision of what it means to be English.
For the past month, the white members of the England team have been taking the knee in solidarity with their black and mixed race colleagues who have been the target of racist abuse – and have continued to do so despite the vitriol aimed at them. Now it’s our turn to step up in solidarity with our fellow citizens of colour who daily face the same abuse.An England that is tolerant, inclusive and diverse is not only possible, it already exists. Sadly, the bellicose forces of division and intolerance have louder voices on their side. But this last month has been a lesson in how we can overcome the boo boys if we stand together. As England squad member Reece James tweeted yesterday: we learn more about our society when we lose, far more than we learn when we win.
The question is whether we walk away in disgust at the stench created by the boorish minority, or roll up our sleeves and get stuck in to clearing this shit out of our society?
Billy Bragg
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