Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka targeted by Racists
We live in age where Diversity should be embraced and celebrated, however, after the loss England faced in the England v Italy Euros final Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho werebtargetd by racists. This is all because they happened to miss penalties. The fact that these players have put their heart and soul into playing for England to get us to the final should be celebrated.
On Social Media Marcus Rashford has been on the receiving end of thousands of negative comments and his mural in Manchester was defaced and vandalised. Over the last 48 hours people have been visiting Rashford’s mural, placing hearts on the wall and writing messages of love and support. Although Rashford has faced these racist comments before, he continues to stand tall, and even wrote a heartfelt message on how sorry he was to have disappointed the country and. Yet, the fact still remains that just because Rashford, Saka and Sanchos are vilified because of the colour of their skin.
Dionne Gran tweeted that: They’re colour blind when you’re winning but can only see colour when you lose. “
The fact that racist comments were able to be posted on social media really reflects the failings of the social media platforms. The BBC stated that “Social Media companies have been criticised for a perceived lack of action on racist abuse on their platforms, and in April Instagram announced a tool to enable users to automatically filter out abusive messages from those they do not follow.” However, this is clearly not enough as people have stated on social media that accounts that make these comments have thousands of followers, so why haven’t their accounts been banned?
The Equality Act 2010 is in place to protect people against discrimination, and this means that there can be lawful action taken place against people who discriminate against a person based on their race, just one of the protected characteristics. This can be seen in the tweet posted by the Metropolitan Police where they stated: “We are aware of the number of offences and racist social media comments being directed towards footballers following the #Euro2020 final. This abuse is totally unacceptable, it will not be tolerated, and it will be investigated.”. The Football Association also released the following statement: -
“The FA strongly condemns all forms of discrimination and is appalled by the online racism that has been aimed at some of our England players on social media. We could not be clearer that anyone behind such disgusting behaviour is not welcome in the following team. We will do all we can to support the affected players while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible”.
One of the great pleasures of our country is that is immersed in diversity and that’s where the beauty lies. We should praise the endeavours of all players who bought a great deal of pleasure, excitement and pride after an extremely difficult year.
Alyssia Sableski - Intern