
Share
1st July 2016
12:22pm BST

And how we spend. The money black sports people earn is always quoted. Look at the black person. Look at how they spend money. Your money. The hard working fans' money. Money that is not properly earned because we got it using our physical, animal talents. No thought is given to how the average 21-year-old would spend £100,000 a week, instead the reader is supposed to get angry at Memphis Depay buying a Rolls Royce. Look at the black athlete frittering his money. They have no idea what they are doing. They should know their place and focus on their football. No thought is given. Get back to the field and do your assigned work. The final link I’ll leave for you.
There are always pointed mentions of the “impoverished childhoods” of black players.
Growing up shorn of love, or 'proper family', as if somehow coming from a black working class background makes us somehow deficient in showing love to one another. Always a link to prison is made, if the player didn't come close to falling to a life of crime, they will find their brother, or cousin, or schoolfriend.
Look for the mention for absent parental figures until a doting manager, a white saviour comes to save them. Talk to them. Show them love. And family. That's all that Balotelli needs. A 'proper' father figure.
To get them to simmer down that animalistic negro rage that apparently sees so many black players spend money freely and party too much. There is constant talk of black players having to "rein it in". Ravel Morrison couldn't rein it in (despite all evidence pointing the blame elsewhere during his time West Ham), Wilfred Zaha was 'lazy' while at Manchester United.
Rein it in. Rein. A whip. A chain. A device to hold us in control, less we devolve into whatever beast the football press believes we have within.
We have to do better. To make football more inclusive for all of its members, we have to study the language we use to describe our black players. We have to get past the knee-jerk reactions of "it has nothing to do with his race", stop our attempts to play devil's advocate and "but a white player goes through this too." We have to LISTEN to the words that are being used and why they are being used.
Raheem Sterling may be 21 years of age, but there is a toxic edge to when someone criticises him calling him “Boy”. Listen for it. Just because John Barnes decided to backheel the banana thrown at him, does not excuse the fact a person threw a banana at him. A person viewed John Barnes as less than human and decided to make mockery of him in a public place. In his place of work. Think on it. Think of how little has changed since. I know this because I have had a banana thrown at me during games. I have been called a “coon winger” while coming off the bench.
Think of how many black footballers there are in the football league, and how few of them go into coaching. What feeds into that gap? Wrack your brain for the last time you saw a black football writer in a mainstream media slot talking about football. Then do it again and think of when he wasn’t a former player. It is hard, and uncomfortable, but there is a gap that has to be reconciled.
We need to talk about Raheem Sterling, who might one day be one of the best talents in Europe. Just not in this way.Explore more on these topics: