1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
There’s a very interesting article in the Guardian today (Can English Football’s Cycle of Racism and hatred Be Broken? By Jonathan Liew), that opens onto the wider issues of racism and hatred (not just racial hatred) in wider society. Liew focuses on social media as the blue touch-paper for his evidence – not surprisingly in the context of Covid lockdowns. He states: “The recent wave of social media abuse – directed primarily at prominent black footballers – follows a well-worn pattern. The incidents begin to cluster with a grisly momentum: Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe on two separate occasions, Anthony Martial, Reece James, Romaine Sawyers, Alex Jankewitz and Lauren James. Statements are issued. Governing bodies, broadcasters and public figures clamber over each other to offer their condemnation, often by way of a fancy social media graphic. And then, like any wave, the anger subsides. The news cycle gets bored. Racism carries on, and so does everyone else. Until the next wave, at least. As Rashford put it last week: ‘Only time will tell if the situation improves. But it’s not improved over the last few years.’”
As far as it goes that points to a reawakening of the racism that many had hoped (believed), had gone away with monkey noises and bananas being thrown at Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson. But then Liew broadens it out: “This isn’t just about racism, as demonstrated by the death threats sent to referee Mike Dean over the weekend, or the recent treatment of the pundit Karen Carney by Leeds fans. Nor is it about single incidents, or even overt abuse. Focusing on social media platforms is to address only the thinnest sliver of the problem, given that much of the abuse currently being dished out has simply migrated online in the absence of fans from stadiums. For all the joy it inspires, the stirring stories it serves up, English football feels more thoroughly consumed by hatred than at any point in its recent history: a smell you can neither accurately place nor decisively ignore.”
My thoughts take Liew’s contention – “that much of the abuse currently being dished out has simply migrated online in the absence of fans from stadiums,” and turns it around. It is my suggestion that social media has given a public voice to many whose outlet for their latent rage had perhaps previously been limited to football hooliganism (highly controlled by the Police from the mid-80s onwards), graffiti (football, social and political) and going on peripheral far-right marches. Add to that the de facto support given to the trolls by media platforms unwilling to police themselves and Governments seemingly unwilling to force them to do so and we have a recipe for verbal lawlessness that can stray into physical violence – vis. the murder of Jo Cox.
But does it have to be this way? Am I right to believe that social media just happens to have provided an outlet for a ‘type’ of people who’ve been longing all this time to spew their nastiness at the objects of their bigotry? Yes, the pandemic will be making people more irritated, which is only to be expected, but the decent into vulgarity has been going on for longer than that. Or, is it just ordinary people being lazy with the shorthand nature of Twitter saying ‘’I haven’t got the time, patience or room in this tweet to explain why it is that your performance in today’s game was sub-standard, so I’ll just go with, ‘F**k off Smith! You’re a complete a**ewipe!’”?
Over to you….
As far as it goes that points to a reawakening of the racism that many had hoped (believed), had gone away with monkey noises and bananas being thrown at Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson. But then Liew broadens it out: “This isn’t just about racism, as demonstrated by the death threats sent to referee Mike Dean over the weekend, or the recent treatment of the pundit Karen Carney by Leeds fans. Nor is it about single incidents, or even overt abuse. Focusing on social media platforms is to address only the thinnest sliver of the problem, given that much of the abuse currently being dished out has simply migrated online in the absence of fans from stadiums. For all the joy it inspires, the stirring stories it serves up, English football feels more thoroughly consumed by hatred than at any point in its recent history: a smell you can neither accurately place nor decisively ignore.”
My thoughts take Liew’s contention – “that much of the abuse currently being dished out has simply migrated online in the absence of fans from stadiums,” and turns it around. It is my suggestion that social media has given a public voice to many whose outlet for their latent rage had perhaps previously been limited to football hooliganism (highly controlled by the Police from the mid-80s onwards), graffiti (football, social and political) and going on peripheral far-right marches. Add to that the de facto support given to the trolls by media platforms unwilling to police themselves and Governments seemingly unwilling to force them to do so and we have a recipe for verbal lawlessness that can stray into physical violence – vis. the murder of Jo Cox.
But does it have to be this way? Am I right to believe that social media just happens to have provided an outlet for a ‘type’ of people who’ve been longing all this time to spew their nastiness at the objects of their bigotry? Yes, the pandemic will be making people more irritated, which is only to be expected, but the decent into vulgarity has been going on for longer than that. Or, is it just ordinary people being lazy with the shorthand nature of Twitter saying ‘’I haven’t got the time, patience or room in this tweet to explain why it is that your performance in today’s game was sub-standard, so I’ll just go with, ‘F**k off Smith! You’re a complete a**ewipe!’”?
Over to you….