You’re An Embarrassment

The racist abuse of Lewis Hamilton at testing for the Formula One season in Barcelona was regrettable. The hysteria surrounding it has used stronger adjectives, justifiably perhaps but in danger of over-revving the engine, in particular an anti-Spanish one with the throttle down on all Spaniards being racists.

There is racism here. Unquestionably there is. So there is everywhere. On occasions such as the Hamilton affair, the British scurry into their sanctimonious smugness of having “solved” the racism-in-sport issue. But things are never black and white, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Whereas Britain has been largely cleansed by political correctness, the same cannot be said for Spain, and for which – in certain ways – we should be grateful. Spanish racism in sport is not the vicious neo-Nazism of eastern Europe; it is more a jokey racism. It is the sort of “joke” that used to pervade British society, one that used to allow even someone as apparently right-on as John Cleese to associate himself with a radio-comedy show that featured a regular “how-de-do-dere-honey” whenever the word black or dark was in the script; one that used to allow something as monstrous as “The Black and White Minstrel Show” to pass as Saturday evening entertainment.

But the “joke” is itself unkind and unacceptable. In Spanish football, it has led to Barcelona’s Samuel Eto’o threatening to leave the pitch, to the embarrassing abuse of England’s coloured players, and to the lack of censure of Luis Aragones, the national team coach, after his remarks about Thierry Henry. What has happened to Aragones? He is still the coach. Glenn Hoddle’s crackpot ideas about the disabled proved to be the final nail in his England managerial coffin. Offensive they may have been, but Hoddle was dismissed as being potty and went on to manage in the Premiership. Had he said what Aragones said, he would have been booted out of FA headquarters faster than you could say “Ron Atkinson” and would never have gone near the game again. Big Ron, shown the red card from the commentary box on the back of his Desailly remarks, had his own joke about the three black players at West Brom – “The Three Degrees”. The last I heard of him, he was involved in a celebrity dinner. Where? Yep, in Mallorca.

The incident involving Hamilton may have been inspired by his spat with local hero Fernando Alonso, but the blacking-up by a few spectators was not a joke, even if they might have believed it to be. It was not a joke, it was puerile. And that’s the thing with such racism, it is childish, stupid, embarrassing and demeaning; demeaning both to those who have their fingers in the face paint and to their “targets”– just like the minstrels used to be. The relevant Spanish authorities and elements of the Spanish media are complicit in giving succour to such childishness. Football clubs are treated with a woeful lack of sanction, the commentators on the England match managed to ignore mentioning the chants, a reporter from the “AS” sports newspaper was on radio saying that it was just a handful of people at the testing in Barcelona. The absence of righteous political correctness may be a positive in Spain, but it does not, or should not extend to the puerility of darkening the face and monkey chants. It does the country no favours and needs to be addressed more seriously, as it should have been with Aragones who should have been shown the door. It is time that some in Spain learnt to grow up.


QUIZ
Yesterday – Could only have been the wonderful Dusty Springfield. Today’s title – nutty boys?

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