Let’s Kick Racism Out Of Football Commentators
Some incredibly colourful Ghanaian fans, seen here in marked contrast to their dull, monochrome and singularly uncolourful American counterparts who aren't colourful at all.
The curtain finally came down on the first ever African World Cup last night, bringing to a close four weeks of thrills, spills and, more memorable yet, the steady deluge of thinly-veiled racist stereotyping by commentators the English-speaking world over.
Anyone who is familiar with BBC’s coverage of the African Cup of Nations will have had fair warning of what would await the world’s TV audiences in South Africa. Veterans of the biennial African tournament were braced for repeated references to the ‘colour’, ‘passion’ and ‘hunger’ of the native fans, hampered by their ‘tactical naivete’, ‘erratic goalkeeping’ and ‘explosive temperament’. Needless to say, they didn’t disappoint.
BBC performed their usual baffling stunt of bringing in a black ex-player as a guest studio analyst to supposedly provide some sort of inside track on how football is played in Africa, despite said player having absolutely no affiliation with Africa, other than some distant ancestral lineage. Just as five-times England cap John Salako was wheeled out to give his thoughts on the African Cup of Nations in 2005, so was Clarence Seedorf, former Netherlands international and native of Surinam, a Dutch colony located towards the northern tip of South America, unveiled as the Beeb’s resident ‘non-Caucasian’ face. A more misguided sop to tokenism you couldn’t script.
The true anachronistic highlights, however, were to come from the commentators. First and foremost, it became quickly apparent that African fans and players would have exclusive rights to the term ‘colourful’ over the course of the tournament. The opening ceremony was, according to Jonathan Stevenson of BBC Sport, “the most colourful opening ceremony of all time”. Alan Shearer (BBC) felt that Cameroon would ‘bring a certain colour’ to the tournament, while Martin Tyler (ESPN), Graham Taylor (5 Live) and serial offender Clive Tyldsley (ITV) never missed an opportunity to extol the colour of the African contingent. Continue reading
Native Mind 