Unfortunately the sports news this morning is dominated by the racist issue rather than the match which tbh is all wrong. An item on the main news OK but not the day's sports headline. Just serves to detract from another good performance from Southgate's new model army.
Abhorrent that racial chanting is to our sensibilities these days it isn't all that long ago that black footballers were being bombarded by bananas in this country. Our press are full of frothy self righteous indignation of course this morning but we never cut these ex Warsaw pact nations any slack do we? We never attempt to see the other side of the coin, we simply expect the rest of the world to automatically adopt our standards which to be frank have been formed after centuries of the sun never setting on the British Empire. We've benefited from years of subliminal conditioning with our colonial past, however we need to rem that these nations are only just turned 20 after effectively 2 generations under the influence of the Soviet Union. Truth is that behind the iron curtain they haven't really had much contact with other races and religions and social engineering / education is never a quick process.
Ignorance may be no excuse but it's definitely a reason. Maybe we need to recall the execution by hanging of the "Frenchman" by the good citizens of Hartlepool.
We aren't perfect either though are we? Many (myself included) believe that we have gone too far down this road in our own country. Last weeks shocking treatment of Amber Rudd for a simple and imo fairly understandable slip of the tongue being just one example. Is it racist to use a now outdated term which back in Rudd's formative years children were being encouraged to use because it was considered back then to be "right on ya" and completely PC. As we see with religious matters infantile conditioning can take an awful lot of erasing. Rudd's attacker in chief Diane Abbott remember was the woman who insisted on BBC TV that black mother's care for their children better than white mothers. I would suggest "Andrew you know what I mean" not being her best defence on that occasion and perhaps something which she might do well to recall before going in with both feet in future.
Abhorrent that racial chanting is to our sensibilities these days it isn't all that long ago that black footballers were being bombarded by bananas in this country. Our press are full of frothy self righteous indignation of course this morning but we never cut these ex Warsaw pact nations any slack do we? We never attempt to see the other side of the coin, we simply expect the rest of the world to automatically adopt our standards which to be frank have been formed after centuries of the sun never setting on the British Empire. We've benefited from years of subliminal conditioning with our colonial past, however we need to rem that these nations are only just turned 20 after effectively 2 generations under the influence of the Soviet Union. Truth is that behind the iron curtain they haven't really had much contact with other races and religions and social engineering / education is never a quick process.
Ignorance may be no excuse but it's definitely a reason. Maybe we need to recall the execution by hanging of the "Frenchman" by the good citizens of Hartlepool.
We aren't perfect either though are we? Many (myself included) believe that we have gone too far down this road in our own country. Last weeks shocking treatment of Amber Rudd for a simple and imo fairly understandable slip of the tongue being just one example. Is it racist to use a now outdated term which back in Rudd's formative years children were being encouraged to use because it was considered back then to be "right on ya" and completely PC. As we see with religious matters infantile conditioning can take an awful lot of erasing. Rudd's attacker in chief Diane Abbott remember was the woman who insisted on BBC TV that black mother's care for their children better than white mothers. I would suggest "Andrew you know what I mean" not being her best defence on that occasion and perhaps something which she might do well to recall before going in with both feet in future.
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) and I got teased right the way through school about it. Apparently these days to the less cerebral, skin colour is a bigger burden than hair colour to a child despite both being simple genetic characteristics. Anyway my Mother always advised to ignore the taunts and don't let anyone see that you are upset or it'll get worse. "Sticks and stones" she used to say. It seemed to work although would Mother's advice not be considered 'counselling' these days or does proper counselling need to cost a King's ransom on Harley St by some overpaid shrink?
