We can punish fans who racially abuse Black players. We can kick them off social media, ban them from football matches, sack them, fine them. But we cannot move society towards greater tolerance through punitive actions alone. Nor can we completely silence racist speech. As things are currently structured, it will inevitably find expression somewhere.

Over a decade ago I shared some personal stories from my childhood which illustrate how racist ideas of Black inferiority and white supremacy are endemic. 

I am in the school library (aged 15) talking to Martin about football. I say how ‘crap’ the England team is. Martin responds: ‘What have Black people ever contributed to us?’ I know what he’s asking. Any answer I give is to save face. (Pele? Michael Jackson?) I don’t question his view that Black people have not contributed – it is true that we have contributed nothing of worth, otherwise, surely, I would have been taught about it? My trust in the British education system is absolute.

 The weekend before that conversation, this happened:

I am at home alone engrossed in England playing Scotland. In the final minute, Scotland scores a winner. The whistle blows and I feel sick. My cousin walks in and she’s shocked that I’m crying. ‘Don’t you know those England fans would tear you limb from limb if they met you on the street. Don’t cry for England, Kevin.’ Now I sob. The game is lost and in an instant she has ripped apart what fragile identity I was holding onto. She has said what I had always felt: I don’t belong.

This sense of not fully belonging is at the heart of the present-day experience of Black football fans. We want to belong, and we trust that we can. We emotionally invest in being fans, but the additional pressure felt by many Black supporters as Rashford, Sancho and Saka took their penalties was a different and separate experience from white supporters. In a visceral way, they were representing us, the Black community; they were shooting to win a football match, but also for our collective sense of belonging. The rejection that followed, even if only by a few white fans, inevitably felt to the players and many Black fans like a rejection by the country. 

Our belonging is tenuous because it is conditional on performing, on not stepping out of line from the expectations set by society. When the unwritten rules are broken, the connection you thought you had with the world around you breaks with it. I considered Martin to be my friend at school, but his ability on the one hand to accept me, but to then completely reject me when I criticised the England team, was emotionally jarring. 

I spent many years dissociating myself from my passion for football. For a long time, the only way I could enjoy a match was by not committing myself emotionally to the outcome. I knew the sense of tribalism that football evoked and was fearful of the racism and rejection that accompanied it.

Only now can I watch a match – and commit emotionally to my hoped-for outcome – without this fear. This freedom comes from remembering that racism, while being an individual act, is cultivated by society. 

With this perspective, the hurt I experienced at Martin’s rejection – and from the fans after the Euro 2020 final – can be felt but without being undermined by it. I am able to see him (them) not only as a beneficiary of the system by virtue of being white but also as a product of the system. We had both absorbed the same message: one of Black inferiority. Despite out-achieving him academically, in sport and in music he could crush me with a single question. No matter how much I achieved, he had an ace card through his sense of innate superiority and belonging. It was never an explicit message, but we both understood it. We absorbed it through the education system, it was embedded by the media, and then spread through the population at large.

This does not excuse what Martin said, or what a few racist England fans did after the Euro 2020 finals, but it frees me from the emotional rollercoaster of the experience. This may be the seed from which a longer-term solution can grow. 

So, returning to my question: do we punish or ‘de-radicalise’ racists in football? We certainly need to recalibrate our response. While messages of support for players are vital in providing succour in response to these highly emotionally charged experiences, punitive action, no matter how satisfying it might feel in the short term, only exacerbates the problem in the long term if not delivered hand-in-hand with rehabilitation and re-education.

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The need for separate education of black children

Understanding the nature of racism, and minimising its impact, has been my life’s work. Possibly this is why I have been less shocked than others about the murder of George Floyd. Having tracked the deaths of mainly black boys owing to gang violence in the UK over the last 15 years, I am more focused on the connection between the education system, criminality, and the death of young black men, both at the hands of the police and, more tragically, at the hands of their peers.

From the earliest age our education system can silently stifle the aspirations of black children and often discounts their most positive attributes, squashing authenticity in the process. We are unlikely ever to see a viral video of a teacher, who in the privacy of a classroom, mindlessly crushes a dream with invisible acts of ignorance, dishonour and humiliation. There is no prospect of disciplining the teacher. There will be no social media storms about miseducation perpetrated by some teachers and yet these acts have ripple effects on our community over many generations. Equal – and I’d say related– to the brutal violence perpetrated by our criminal justice system.

In a blog last year (August 2019) I describe how a teacher tried to thwart my aspirations at school and the effect it had on my self-esteem.

My English teacher humiliated me in front of the class on a weekly basis by making me read out loud (or more like stumble through) the Mayor of Casterbridge, Lark Rise and Romeo and Juliet – even though he knew I was dyslexic, or worse still, that I couldn’t read properly.
Despite the mixed messages and difficulties at school, I put everything into studying and eventually ended up with the equivalent of five GCSE’s, which on the face of it wasn’t that bad. But they were all grade ‘C’ and given how hard I’d worked I felt ashamed. These average grades confirmed what I already suspected, that as a black child I inherently lacked the intelligence to do better.

The miseducation was not only of me. Twenty-nine classmates witnessed my humiliation over two years. What implicit messages might they have taken away from this experience? Over their career a single teacher like mine will teach a thousand students. For the sake of argument, let’s say 12.5% of teachers hold racist views. This amounts to over 62,500 racist teachers in our primary and secondary schools today.** Sixty-two and a half thousand teachers who will shape the thinking of a new generation of political leaders, judges, lawyers, police, doctors, and teachers. They therefore shape the cultures within these institutions and wider society.

When my 12-year-old daughter read the August blog rushed out of the room and came back a minute later with a piece of homework she’d been given.*** The task was to fill out a table listing both the positives and negatives of colonialism. If you are struggling to understand why this is an issue, then consider the appropriateness of the same table being used to teach pre-teens about sexism, homophobia, or anti-Semitism.

These assaults on the integrity of black children are insidious. They are psychological blows which are felt in the soul, embedded in the mind and feed a sense of inferiority that can last more than a lifetime, as it trickles down to the next generation. I have seen the impacts of poor teaching play out (albeit with different outcomes) in those who have achieved career success (as I have) and those who have ended up in prison, as a friend did.****

The four officers involved in the George Floyd murder should be prosecuted, but we cannot leave it there. Ultimately, we cannot legislate our way out of racism. Dealing with immediate issues of justice is part of the process, but we will only defeat racism by also making the education system fit for purpose. To fight racism, we need to educate differently by changing the school curriculum for everyone, and by training our teachers properly about how racism manifests itself, even in the most politically correct of us. While we work for that change, we should create more educational opportunities designed by experts for BAME children outside of the mainstream system. We must give black children a level of defence against the institutionalised racism in our education system through a positive sense of identity; and prevent the miseducation of yet another generation.

*  Title based on ‘The Mis-Education of the Negro’, originally published in 1933 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson

**There are currently 506,400 full-time teachers in the UK. 216,500 work in primary schools, 208,300 work in secondary schools, 61,500 work in independent schools and 16,700 work in special schools.28 Oct 2019. Key UK education statistics – BESA 

***I wrote to the school who agreed not to teach the so-called positives of imperialism in future. To prevent this being taught in other schools I also wrote to my local MP who wrote to the Education Secretary. The response (from the Minister of State for School Standards) in a nutshell was that it is up to individual schools to decide how history is taught. See letter here.

**** I understand that the education system is not singularly responsible for negative outcomes faced by black people: the media, criminal justice system and health services also play a part. However, from an institutional perspective, I see the education system as being at the root and therefore the best starting point for systemic change.

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To some extent, teachers inevitably reflect the breadth of attitudes in society, including those on race. Twenty-five per cent of the general public admit to having racist attitudes. Whilst this will likely be less amongst teachers, it is certain that some will also hold such views. But how many? And what exposure do black children have to these teachers?

I can find no official statistics on this which is bizarre when you think about it. You would assume that the Department of Education or the Health and Safety Executive would want to know how many students have been exposed to racist or prejudiced teachers, but that data has never been collected and still is not.

So, I have modelled some scenarios – some ‘what-ifs’. What if teachers are half as likely as the general public to have racist views? 12.5% of teachers would have racist views. If that were the case, what would be the probability that an average student is exposed to a racist teacher at least once in their school life? Do the maths, and it is shocking. The probability is 99.99% and, on average, a black child (and indeed a white child) is likely to be taught by 10 racist teachers.* I was so surprised by these probabilities that I had them checked.** Interestingly, whatever percentage you use for teachers with racist attitudes, the risk to black children is remarkably high.
Teachers with racist attitudes Chance of a black child being taught by a racist teacher:

In most other circumstances we would find this level of exposure and risk to children completely unacceptable. Who of us would put our child into a school system where they were guaranteed to be caned, or exposed to a class A drug or sexually abused; and where this would happen regularly, turning their school experience into one of daily anxiety, dread or fear? We either don’t understand the impacts of racism on a child’s development or we don’t see these impacts as severe enough to put policies in place to prevent them.

Teachers have the power to inspire, but also to crush the aspirations of a child. We need to assess a teacher’s attitude to race before letting them into a classroom. We also need to track their performance when it comes to the treatment of black children, especially if related to disciplinary actions. Changing the syllabus won’t stop the disproportionate numbers of black children sent to special units; or being suspended or expelled from school. Acts of unconscious bias or overt racism in the classroom not only disrupt the education of black children but infects their minds. It often causes them to internalise the racism they experience and practise it on themselves, with devastating consequences to their self-esteem and life outcomes . It’s worth saying that white children bear witness to this treatment and potentially internalise views about black people which they carry back into society. In the end, we all lose.

I have had personal experience of classroom racism; so much so that I now believe that some separate education of black children is necessary. I say more on this and share one of my experiences at the hands of a racist teacher in my next blog.

(First published by Lankelly Chase on 25th June 2020)

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* It was assumed that 12.5% of teachers held racist views, that on average a student would by taught by 78 different teachers over their school life (primary and secondary school – 12 years). The probability of not being taught by a racist teacher would be 0.875^78*100=0.003%. So, the likelihood of being taught be a racist teacher is 100% -.003%=99.99%. The expected number of racist teachers is just 12.5% of 78, which is 9.75 so you would expect a randomly chosen pupil to have been taught by approx. 10 racist teachers.  

**I had the calculations done by a maths student at Cambridge University and independently done and verified by another maths student at Birmingham University. 

*** ‘The Mis-Education of the Negro’, originally published in 1933 by Dr. Carter G. Wood

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