I’ve written previously in A Love Supreme about racism and the fact that, fairly obviously you’d have thought, there’s no place for it in football. Actually, there’s no place for it in life generally but I’ve started to notice more prejudice and discrimination creeping back onto the terraces and, perhaps the worst place for it, twitter.
Racism is still a huge problem in society and, with a report of an incident in our game at Shrewsbury, we can’t just tut at other fans and their abhorrent behaviour, we have to take our stand against it too.
But, on ‘rainbow laces’ weekend where clubs throughout football and other sports make a stand of support for the LBGT+ community, it was noticeable that there were (unless I missed them) no communications from our club supporting the campaign.
Of course, it could be said that we’ve been making gestures against racism for the last thirty years and morons are still shouting from the stands or from the secret comfort of their keyboards so, perhaps the gestures don’t work but giving up is the wrong answer and the club’s silence certainly doesn’t help move the message forward, nor does the lack of our players taking the knee, while other clubs continue to do so.
We need to show members of all communities that they are and will always be a welcome part of the Sunderland AFC community. We need to move away from a world where the differences that make us human are things that are used as weapons and judgements, and we need the biggest characters in our community to stand up and show their commitment for others to follow.
As we get used to a world where people talk about mental health more freely and sensibly so there can be no excuses for deliberately abusing people for any personal reasons. I can’t pretend I’m innocent of this. I’ve made more than my fair share of digs about Johnson and Pritchard’s height in recent weeks and I shouldn’t have done. I dislike the way Johnson is managing the club and his general attitude and approach, but my cheap jokes weren’t appropriate. I want to tell you it was harmless banter but that’s for the person hearing it to decide rather than the person throwing it. As an overweight bald bloke and former ginger, I know how ‘hilarious banter’ hurts. We should all know better. But we don’t.
The fans are led by the players and the owners of the club, especially the younger fans. In a recent interview with ALS, Gary Bennett spoke about education being the key to moving forwards. Visibility of campaigns and education. Children need role models and, for that, those role models need to be seen publicly supporting campaigns and actions and joining in with education not just remaining silent for fear of upsetting anyone.
Time for KLD, Speakman, David Jones et al to show us the way forward with more public condemnation and involvement in education and for all of us to think before we screech abusive comments.
