Nikolay Kalinin on racism from comedians, estate agents and politicians in the wake of England’s loss on Sunday
When England lost on Sunday, millions of souls cried in despair, which was expected. The part that came after that however, was not. In the aftermath of Italy’s win, many fine and reasonable people in the nation stood alone as a section of grieving fans transformed into a raging mob prepared to unleash their ungodly fury on the black footballers who did not manage to score during the penalties.
Following the match, the footballers’ Instagram accounts – in particular Marcus Rashford’s – were flooded with racist comments, an event which really contradicts a recent government report that envisioned Britain as an extremely progressive and tolerant society.
Others took to Twitter to unleash their anger, with comedian Andrew Lawrence writing: “All I’m saying is, the white guys scored” and “I can see that this has offended a lot of people, and I’m sorry that black guys are bad at penalties.” The tweets received so much attention that many of the comedian’s scheduled shows were pulled. Consider your career over, sunshine.
A similar case occurred when an estate agent, Andrew Bone, tweeted an extremely racist remark, only to backtrack hours later and claim that his account was ‘hacked,’ and even calling the police. His employers, Savills, have suspended him, although in all honesty an instant dismissal would be less damaging for them in PR terms.
The Conservatives weren’t spared from the plague of ignorance either, as MP Natalie Elphicke stated in a group chat WhatsApp message revealed by GB News that Rashford should have spent more time “perfecting his game” rather than “playing politics.” In other words, ‘Nasty Nat’ – the wife of the jailed ‘Naughty Tory’ sex offender ex-MP Charles Elphicke – would have preferred if Rashford simply allowed the Conservative government to keep the schoolchildren starving and not set up a campaign in favour of free school meals. Honestly, the Cybermen have more humanity than this MP.
After being “blasted,” Elphicke did later make a semi-attempt at saying sorry and stated: “Last night I shared the frustration and heartbreak of millions of other England fans. I regret messaging privately a rash reaction about Marcus Rashford’s missed penalty and apologise to him for any suggestion that he is not fully focused on his football.” This quite frankly wasn’t enough, but given her past form on causing offence and supporting deviancy, nobody was surprised.
These anger-fuelled reactions cannot be ignored. The fact that the public decided to come after the black footballers following the loss demonstrates that our society is pretty far from tolerant, a fact that should have been made obvious by the treatment of Raheem Stirling.
Not only have the people been racist to the footballers working tirelessly on the field – and also working to solve social issues – but also the scenes of trashed London streets suggest that during the matches we have reverted to a sub-human state in which all rationality is abandoned in favour of primal feelings.
If Britain truly is a progressive nation, then we must work to ensure that it stays that way; racism has no place in our society, or any society indeed, and cases of such abhorrent behaviour should be dealt with without delay.
Pictured top: Foot-in-mouth fanatic and all-round Tory twerp Natalie Elphicke MP (left), her offensive message and crusading social justice campaigner and footballer Marcus Rashford (right).
