My struggles with the truth

THE FOLLOWING BLOG CONTAINS THEMES AND LANGUAGE WHICH SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING. INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS ONLY.

I made reference to the peerless Cyrille Regis in my last post. He was a late 70s striker who played for West Bromwich Albion and, alongside Laurie Cunninham and Brendan Batson, was one of Ron Atkinson's pioneering Three Degrees. This clip on YouTube shows them destroying Man U in the 78-79  season, the black footballers being booed every time they touched the ball. So things have moved on considerably, but I'd like to say a heartfelt "Well done" to Jason Roberts and Rio Ferdinand for their actions this weekend in not wearing the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign T-shirt. It looks like Rio's going to get a good kicking from Sir Alex Ferguson. SAF described Rio's actions as "embarrassing" and promised "He'll be dealt with it, don't worry about that".

Roberts and Ferdinand are protesting what they perceive to be a lack of action by the 'Kick It Out' organisation in combating racism in football. In light of the high-profile Suarez and Terry cases and what happened in Serbia it's time for something more than words on a t-shirt. I hope they get the opportunity to explain their positions rather than being vilified for rejecting the prevailing orthodoxy.

The reaction of the Serbian FA to the criticism they've received for their monkey chanting fans has been curious. They posted a heavily edited video on youTube suggesting that Danny Rose is lying when he says that he was the subject of racist abuse. It's pathetic, asinine, utterly witless and smacks of a Lance Armstrong style two-fingered denial.

There's a lot of that denial stuff floating about. I was on a sports news website and was perturbed by the amount of racist abuse offered by Football fans in defence of John Terry, which, of course, I had to challenge. There was one fella who had an onscreen name of THE TRUTH. The following are all pretty awful, but illustrate that racism is alive and well. I've copied and pasted his posts without editing or correction:

THE TRUTH

WHY DO NIG_GERS CARRY A TURD IN THERE WALLETS ?

 I.D.

THE TRUTH

WHY DO MONKEYS LOOK SO WORRIED ?

BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT IN A MILLION YEARS THEY WILL EVOLVE INTO NIG_GERS.

THE TRUTH

WHY DID STEVEY WONDER ALWAYS LOOK SO HAPPY ?

BECAUSE NO ONE TOLD HIM HE WAS BLACK.

THE TRUTH

WHY DO NIG_GERS STINK ?

SO THAT BLIND PEOPLE CAN HATE THEM AS WELL.

THE TRUTH

THE DISCOVERER OF DNA DR JAMES WATSON SAID BLACK NEGROS

HAVE A VERY LOW IQ AND PREFER TO DANCE AROUND TO BONGO DRUMS

AND MOST SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THIS TO BE TRUE.

THE TRUTH

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU SEE A NIG_GER WITH ONE LEG ?

STOP LAUGHING AND RE-LOAD.

THE TRUTH

MOST SCIENTISTS THINK NEGROS HAVE THE IQ OF SMALL CHILDREN AND THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL THEM

 IS TO GIVE THEM A GOOD THRASHING

THE TRUTH

ITS AN ""INCONVIENIENT TRUTH""

NO ONE WANTS NIG_GERS OR PAKIS HERE

THEY ARE SUB HUMAN IN EVERY WAY

ITS NOTHING PERSONAL

ITS JUST THE TRUTH

THE TRUTH

YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST THE ARGUMENT IF YOU TRY AND BAN SOMETHING..

WHICH MEANS YOU ARE UNABLE TO ARGUE YOUR POINT FOR OR AGAINST

THE TRUTH

ANYONE NOTICE HOW BLACKS ARE ENGLISH WHEN THEY WANT TO BE

AND SUDDENLY CHANGE TO  AFRICAN VICTIMS WHEN THEY WANT TO BE

THE TRUTH

 80% OF  AFRICAN NIG_GERS ARE HIV POSITIVE

 AND THE REASON IS THEY TAKE IT UP THE ARSE

 STRANGE BUT TRUE CHECK IT OUT

THE TRUTH

DARWINS LAW 

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

WHITES ARE FIT 

NIG_GERS ARE  S_H_I_T

Horrified, I asked, quite reasonably, what the fuck the moderators were doing allowing this vile filth to be posted without censure or sanction as it indicated that they agreed with these views. There were those who posted that, like many "People of colour", I was being too sensitive, or actually a bit of  a bigot for wanting to restrict THE TRUTH's right to free speech.

In celebration of my love for Gene Simmons my e-mail addy bears a "Demon" reference, which inspired the THE TRUTH to respond:

THE TRUTH

HAVE YOU NOTICED ITS ONLY NIG_GERS AND FAGSTHAT WANT TO BAN ME

OTHER MAY NOT AGREE WITH ME, BUT THEY RESPECT MY RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

DEMONFAG.... ITS CALLED FREEDOM OF SPEECH

COS YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

This was a step too far for me. I channeled the spirit of Malcolm Tucker and offered a brusque riposte:

Do not address me, you f@%king moron. You're a waste of skin, rather like the useless moderators who've allowed you to say stuff that you should be arrested for. And what's with the 'fag' reference? Scared of the big black dick, are we? If I'd known you were going to turn out this way, I would have insisted your Mother swallow instead of...

Despite the warning in red at the top of this page I cannot reproduce the concluding thoughts of my rant. If you can bear to, read this imbecile's crass posts again. They pinpoint precisely why wearing a t-shirt is not enough. Kick It Out need to do more than offer slogans and promotional t-shirts, because racism is still a very real problem.