The difficulty we face in the fight against racism, former Liverpool icon John Barnes holds, is not tackling the racists themselves. They are effectively lost to us. The problem is persuading those who believe themselves not to be racists that they also inflict hurt and damage in their responses to it, effectively giving the prejudiced licence to abuse.
I give you Jose Mourinho. I give you Mark Clattenburg. I give you the Benfica comms department, all of whom would vehemently deny being racist but in their own ways demonstrated the damage they do when addressing what appears to be a clear racist incident as Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni insulted Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr.
Mourinho insisted that Vinicius should have celebrated “in a respectful way”. Asked if he believed the forward had incited the crowd, he said: “Yes, I believe so.” Clattenburg for his part suggested the player had made it “very difficult” for the referee.
Vinicius had just scored the worldie that would decide the outcome of the match and celebrated in true samba style at the corner flag. This wilful joy fried the brains of the opposition, triggering playground rage that turned nasty. This is a blight he has confronted throughout his career in the Iberian peninsula, where his flamboyance in the cause of Real Madrid meets the base impulses of racists who use it as an excuse to let rip.
The difficulty in legal terms is establishing the fact of what Prestianni said, because his mouth was concealed. We can infer from the shirt pulled over his mouth that Prestianni was not saying well done.
Vinicius complained to the referee, making clear the word he had heard was “monkey”. According to Vinicius’ teammate, Aurelien Tchouameni, Prestianni denied racism, claiming the insult he used was in fact homophobic. Great. That’s okay then.
Either way the game was stopped for 10 minutes as per Uefa statutes before playing to its conclusion. The matter was never going to rest there, and shouldn’t. The response of others like Mourinho and Clattenburg show how far we are from understanding the problem, never mind dealing with it.
The Barnes thesis at least provides a framework for helping white people understand what white privilege means, that it is a thing, and the damage it can do when good people fail to recognise how their behaviours make progress impossible.
Mourinho wanted this to be about the goal celebration, essentially blaming the victim for the abuse he received, rather than the abuser for giving it. Clattenburg positioned himself at Mourinho’s shoulder with the same interpretation of events. The fact that the match referee raised crossed arms to indicate suspension on racist grounds was not uppermost in their considerations.
Mourinho would later double down on his harmful intransigence by offering the Benfica career of legendary black player, Eusebio, as evidence that the club could not be racist. This is the kind of devastating primary school reasoning that doubles down on denial and blocks mainstream recognition of the issue.
Benfica went even further in producing a clip of match footage as evidence that the Real Madrid players were too distant from the alleged abuse to have heard anything. This was contradicted by a number of Vinicius’ teammates, including Trent Alexander-Arnold, who spoke out against the abuse after the game.
What Benfica’s position does show is intention and bias. Their interest is not in understanding how the incident impacted Vinicius, but on defending their own player and thus themselves. They are not prepared to take a black man at his word. They are of course not saying that his claims are untrue, only that they cannot be corroborated by evidence. Thus is Vinicius gaslit in his moment of need by Mourinho and Benfica.
The institutions of the game, coach, club, ex-referee are choosing not only to look away but to shift the pretext. This is not an isolated incident but is playing out in context of black people’s experiences the world over.
It is an insult to history’s tortured victims of racism to ask the question, but what would be gained by a black man charging about the pitch opportunistically accusing a white opponent of racism? I mean it never happens, right? And besides, who needs that kind of attention?
By reacting as they have, Mourinho, Benfica et al perpetuate racism by not confronting it head on. Blinded by white privilege they have made this Vinicius’ problem not theirs, not the game’s, not ours, when in truth it is on all of us to make a stand. Shame on them.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/caL71yd
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