It sucks that the England team lost, but England as a country? We never deserved to win.
TRIGGER WARNING: Racism, racial slurs, violence, domestic violence (these are all mentioned very briefly but I have intentionally not included any offensive slurs or language within this post).
I took a bit of time to breathe before I wrote this post. The past 48 hours or so have been incredibly triggering and hurtful for anyone in this country who isn’t white. Part of me wants to delete Twitter for a while so I’m not exposing myself to it, but I also want to keep on top of what’s going on. Although every time I open Twitter I am pleasantly reminded that I’m on the right side of it, the second I go looking for evidence of racist comments elsewhere, they are not hard to find.
I’ll start by rewinding a little bit and laying down some context. I’ve previously written on this blog about the myth that Britain isn’t racist. When events like the past couple of days happen, people claim it’s “the minority”, and “not representative of the country”, but it is exactly representative of the country. Of course, not everyone in Britain is racist, but Britain is a racist place and discrimination and abuse exists everywhere we go. There is nothing that can be done about that until we acknowledge it. As long as we, on a population level, are hiding from it, we are never going to be able to combat racism.
It frustrates me that there are so many tweets like the above floating around at the moment, because as long as racist abuse exists in this country, it absolutely does represent the the British people. Living in denial creates a tolerant society and this directly leaks into so many different settings on an everyday basis. Take healthcare, for example: not only are Black women in the UK four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than white women, the General Medical Council has recently been found to discriminate against doctors based on race. In terms of job prospects, I only recently wrote about the fact that non-white names negatively impact your chances of being hired for a job in Western countries. Did you know that the FTSE 100 has more CEOs called Steve than CEOs from BAME backgrounds? Gross.
Everything feels hopeless when you think about the fact that these are normal people that we come across every day. They’re out there, they exist, and if you’re at the receiving end of racist abuse, it certainly doesn’t matter whether it’s “only a minority”. Some of you might remember a recent post, where I wrote about a white guy who said his racist relative “would really hate” me, and although that was a one-off event, that sentence will stay in my mind for the rest of my life. I don’t think people realise that, yes Karen, it’s great that you’re not using racial slurs on Instagram, but if you claim you’re not part of the problem, or that the problem is only small so it doesn’t matter, you are precisely the problem. And then you’ve got the classic guy who is convinced he isn’t racist because he orders from his local Indian once a week and has one Black friend. These people are probably the most frustrating of them all. We can report tweets, we can ask Instagram to do better, we can ask for identification to be required for every social media account. But the truth is, until people start actually being anti-racist, they are still very much part of the racism problem.
Racist, violent people are massively over-represented within the English football fanbase. You don’t have to pay much attention to football to know the terrible reputation that football fans have, and it’s just a shame that a simple sport is so heavily tied to spikes in domestic violence and racism. It says a lot about our country, that as soon as the last penalty was done, we had to rush to share domestic violence helpline numbers, and check on our Black friends and family. I did a Tesco run the following morning and I can’t describe the relief in the fact that I live in a village on the outskirts of a small town, and not in a big city where people of colour were scared to leave the house. I couldn’t concentrate on anything yesterday because I couldn’t stop thinking about the ongoing abuse.
The England team are brilliant. Even in their response to the abuse, they have been absolutely exemplary. I’ve never seen more people involved in football and that is because they are such a likeable team! They’re a group of young men who stand up for what they believe in, despite the abuse, and they can be proud of the fact that they are brilliant role models. When I was growing up I hardly ever saw people that looked like me on TV or in major sports, and I’m so glad that younger kids have that now. Of course, over the past couple of days, along with many other POC, I have been reminded that there are more than enough people out there who think that we don’t belong.
As soon as the penalties were over, my sister said it: “how unfortunate that it was the three black players”. As time went on and the abuse started building on social media, I admit it was so much worse than I expected. To see in the following hours that a black child was attacked on the way to school, that my Asian friend was called the n-word (I’ve seen that word more in the past 2 days than I ever have in my whole life), and the horrifying extent of the abuse on social media, broke my heart.
Let’s not forget that the government and the royal family have essentially given people a free pass to go about their racist behaviour without consequence. Prince William’s silence in the treatment of Meghan Markle over the past few years means his words have zero credibility right now, and I couldn’t help but just laugh at Priti Patel’s condemnation of abuse. If the pandemic hadn’t already made me glad I was watching the game at home with a few friends rather than at a pub, as someone who isn’t white, there was suddenly another layer to my need for safety. It sucks that the England team lost, but England as a country? We never deserved to win. England’s revival under Southgate is being displaced in newspapers across Europe, by stories of the thuggery and abuse taking place here. It’s important to differentiate between the “10 German bombers”, “Two world wars, one World Cup” version of England (what is this country’s obsession with talking about the war?) and the forward-thinking, diverse, England team. England’s commitment to anti-racism is what makes them such a brilliant representation of this country, and I couldn’t be more proud of them.
People of colour spend our whole lives trying to prove our worth to white people. Even if it’s subconsciously, we look for validation from them, to be good enough so that we can be treated like we aren’t intruders. But right now, I’ve never felt less like I belong. As a person of colour, you’re allowed to be in this country as long as you are successful and as long as you are quiet and well-behaved. But white people don’t have to spend their time trying to justify their existence in this country. They can pretty much do the bare minimum and get the same amount of praise as someone from a minority ethnic background. I have been repeatedly reminded throughout my life (from well-meaning people) that I have to be significantly better than my white counterparts, to receive the same benefits or respect as them. So you work harder, or you make yourself attractive by Western standards. But the second you’re not good enough, or the second you make a mistake, people will make sure you know that they don’t want you here – any previous success you might have had is instantly void.
It’s also important to note that kindness towards other people should never be conditional. So it’s wonderful that people are reminding each other that Rashford fed thousands of children, or that Sancho opened football pitches in the suburbs of London, or that Saka is only 19 (I can assure you, when I was 19 I was doing literally nothing meaningful), but they don’t need to be superheroes to be treated with respect.
I could write for ages as there is so much more that I could say, but I’ll end on this thought:
There is a part of me that is incredibly relieved that I’m going to become a doctor, because it will be a way for me to justify my existence in this country. But the truth is, racism is very much alive, even within healthcare, and becoming a doctor isn’t going to protect me from that. If I’m being completely, totally honest: I know this country will continue to be racist for the rest of my lifetime. It’ll be a miracle if I have kids who don’t have to experience racism in theirs.
But I won’t lie to you, that little glimpse of unity that we had before Sunday night? I loved it. Southgate and his team are tapping into the most admirable aspects of being English, displaying it to the entire country, and showing us another path. For that, I am grateful.
(Featured Photo by Habib Ayoade on Unsplash)
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Thivya K 