Hi Folks,
So to start out - this thread isn't the place to dredge up arguments about the Suarez/Evra incident, so please don't get into that again - but last night John Barnes spoke at the Cambridge Union about the causes of Racism in Football, and I thought some of what he said may be of interest to other Reds. Obviously I can't remember exactly all of what he said so will try to cover most of what I can remember.
Firstly he started off with a couple of light-hearted gags to put a smile on everyone's faces, and then opened the talk by saying that when people think of racism in football they often think about the campaigns that are running such as Kick it Out etc. He said that they are definitely important and that they need to continue, making sure that people still get the message that racism during football matches is unacceptable, but that football is only 90 minutes a week - and they can't legislate for what happens the other 6 days of the week. So he said that we can't just think about racism in football in isolation, that we have to understand racism more broadly in society, and to do that we have to understand what the concept of "Race" is, and where it comes from.
So (to me at least) one of the key points he then made was to say that one of the main problems is that people immediately associate colour with race, and he said that is a silly way of thinking about it - giving the example of a white woman who has a kid with a black man, does that mean that the child is a different race to both of the parents? Clearly not! And so he suggested that it was more important to consider cultural factors and attitudes, and what a specific person identified with, as more important in terms of what race they are, rather than just what colour skin they have. Examples of this were the fact that atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda weren't committed by one colour of people on another, but more on one ethnicity/culture on another.
The next part he tried to understand where the concept of racial discrimination came in, and by and large argued that it was a colonial thing, essentially over the last 300-400 years. Prior to this, he used the example of black people being able to rise to the rank of general in the Roman army, and that it was not their colour which defined this but rather a combination of their abilities, and their willingness to conform to (and indeed fight for) specific social/cultural structures. However he reasoned that European colonialisation of the world was very much based on a superiority structure, with a hierarchy containing whites at the top, through to blacks at the bottom, and that this was backed up by primitive eugenic research in order to justify oppression in the context of a Christian society that recognised the equal rights of all men. Based on this he said it was only normal for white europeans/Americans to feel a sense of empowerment, which could easily lead to what he termed "unconscious racism", especially when the majority of the media - films, books etc - portray "beautiful" people using predominantly white characters. He said that the aim of him coming and giving talks etc was to try to make people more aware of unconscious racism and what could be done to get it out of society, and that in order to do this it required not just legislation to tell people to stop shouting racist things during football matches, but to win "hearts and minds" and get people over the problem at a much younger age.
Then he went on to mention a bit about racism in football, and obviously brought up the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand and Suarez/Evra cases - obviously he didn't go into specific details about them, but did give a few general thoughts/comments. With the Ferdinand case he said it was strange because Anton's mum is white, so she wouldn't consider her son to be a different race than her just because his dad was black, again to underline the argument that race and colour should be considered as two separate things. Also he said that for example if John Terry and another black English player from Chelsea went to a club, it's likely the black player would associate more with John Terry than if there were a couple of black guys from West Africa there, because there would be more in common between Terry and a teammate than there would be between the black player and a couple of guys from Africa who are from a different culture.
As for the Suarez/Evra case he said that having spoken to various players/ex-players/managers, he could say 100% that any other manager in the same situation would have done exactly the same - because of the value of the player to the team. He cited Rooney and van Persie as examples, then got the crowd to shout out a crap white player from Man U (someone said "Darren Gibson" FFS) and he said that if that was the case the club would weigh up how important the player was, and if they felt they were dispensable, they would get rid of them. Also mentioned that it was hypocritical of Fergie to call for Suarez to be banned permanently, based on the fact he didn't say anything after Schmeichel racially abused Ian Wright back in the 90s. Furthermore he said that the media were also just jumping on the bandwagon, because there were several of them who were still writing back when he was playing and when racial abuse was common, and they didn't seem to care about it then, so they shouldn't get on their high horses and be calling for lifetime bans now. Also mentioned that in Suarez' culture the word "negrito" doesn't carry the same racial offense as calling someone a "n*gger" does over here, and that Javier Hernandez uses the same word as a term of affection as did Michel Salgado to Claude Makalele.
On a more general point he said that the UK has this perception that it has to be the moral trend setter for the world, citing the crusade against racism in Eastern Europe and the BOC decision to ban Dwain Chambers even though he's served the sentence given by the World governing body. That the rest of the world sees this as "colonial arrogance" and symptomatic of a country still coming to terms with the fact that the days of empire are now over. Commented on the failed world cup bid that he was part of and how he was trotted out when presenting to the Jamaican delegates while David Cameron, Prince Harry and David Beckham hung around in the hotel lobby hoping that the Caribbean/African delegates would come downstairs so that they could shmooze with them, e.g. offering tickets to the royal wedding etc. Also how the English bid was incredibly multicultural, showing pictures of Sikh policemen, commenting on all the ethnic communities in the UK etc, and that there were pretty much no white people in the presentation at all
In contrast, the Russian ambassadors were all blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white characters and their whole presentation may as well have shown a whole battalion of Cossacks charging into battle!
After that he went on to read out a series of quotes from famous historical figures from the last few hundred years, to highlight some of the attitudes that were (and in some cases still are) prevalent. Most of them were pretty shocking and were along the lines of "The natives are barbarians and the colonialists have a duty to civilise them" kind of thing. He commented on how people perceive themselves and how as a result of colonial attitudes, many African players would respond differently to a European coach than they would do to an African coach.
Other asides inluded:
- Pointing out that St George's Day is supposed to be a celebration of all good and great things English; but St George was actually Turkish, and last year the ambassadors at a St George's Day celebration were him (Jamaican) and a Welsh rugby player! And also that St Patrick was originally Irish...;
- Saying that he frequently got mistaken for Denzel Washington in the street, and often when people come up and say "Hang on I recognise you" he just says "Yeah I'm Denzel Washington" straight out. Apparently one time he was on his way to the ASDA in Heswall while dressed a bit trampishly, and got stopped by a Manc guy. The guy said "Oh I recognise you, right", so JB said "Yeah, yeah, Denzel Washington right, do you want an autograph?" The guy said yeah, so he signed it "John Barnes", and as he left he heard the guy muttering under his breath "God I can't believe I just met Denzel Washington!";
- When asked about Ron Atkinson, said it was right that he was sacked but felt some empathy for him because he knew Big Ron and said he probably identified more with the black players than the white ones, and his deeds should be taken into consideration not just one comment made when he thought he was off air;
- When someone mentioned Gareth Bale he agreed that he does look a bit like a monkey, and no-one would bat an eyelid if you said that, but if it was a black player and someone said he looked like a monkey then it would be construed as racist. Said that was an example of people going too far to not be seen to be racist, and that if someone looks like a monkey then it shouldn't matter if he's black/white/chinese, people should be able to comment on it. He said that equally applied to Peter Reid whose nickname was "Chimp Head" and he was fine with it
;
- Said that he thought the appointment of Hodgson was another example of the "colonial arrogance" that for some reason England SHOULD have an English manager and they SHOULD be the best, regardless of the fact that over the last 40 years we haven't been anywhere near the best team in the world. He did however also say that he thought Hodgson was a good manager (both me and my old man had a bit of a chuckle when he said that!) and that maybe it might actually help because the expectation would be lower, which might take some pressure off the players;
That's all I can remember for the moment - I'm sure he covered plenty of other stuff but I've tried to give a general gist of what he was getting at.
Also I should say that he came across as a really thoughtful, genuinely nice guy who was trying to make a positive difference in the world. After the talk he was brilliant in terms of sticking around, signing autographs and having pictures taken with people (I did go up and got to have a pic taken with him, I was dead chuffed). Absolutely class and made me think we as a club are incredibly lucky to have this man associated with us, both for being one of our best ever players but in addition being a top top guy. I would definitely advocate him being given more responsibility for being an ambassador for the club in future.
