Greg Clarke has resigned because he committed an unforgivable verbal sin. (No, Virginia, not venial, verbal.) Clarke was the Football Association chairman and was talking to a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday. They asked him about the problems gay footballers might face on social media if they made their sexuality public. Here’s Clarke’s reply: “If I look at what happens to high-profile female footballers, to high-profile coloured footballers, and the abuse they take on social media… social media is a free-for-all.”
It was because he used the term `coloured footballers’ that he was judged to have sinned unforgivably.
Claptrap. I’m sufficiently old to remember when the term ‘coloured people’ was seen as more polite and respectful, rather than to speak of ‘black people’. In fact, shortly after I returned from Canada in the late 1970s, I remember referring to a ‘black man’, and at least one of my students being deeply embarrassed for me – as he/they saw it, terming people ‘black’ was insulting.
Do you know the accepted terminology for BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) people? I’m sure I’ve heard references in the US to ‘people of colour’, which always struck me as a bit daft, since everybody, regardless of race, is some colour – with, ironically, the exception of black, which those who know say is not a colour but the absence of colour.
Add to which the bewildering fact that BAME people come in a variety of shades.
Confused? You’re not alone. I firmly believe Greg Clarke didn’t mean to insult black people in his comment, and that he was using an expression he thought was respectful. Most black sportspeople didn’t agree – they thought it insulting.
Looking at the complete Clarke sentence, it’s obvious he was hurrying to criticise – rightly, I would say – social media for the abuse hurled at minorities in sport.
If speech is to be patrolled and policed as tightly as this, there’s a danger that well-intentioned people will throw up their hands and say “I opt out. The English language has become a mine field, where one misplaced word can send you straight to the dole office. So no bloody comment!”
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