richards30 said:
How has this turned into a racism debate? At times mario has been a complete fucking dick!! Does that make me racist?? Some need to take off their mario tinted glasses and admit he's been a tosser at times since he was 17 let alone since with us! If he just kept doing what he done to the Germans then there would be no issues! I do like mario as a player but until he spends a decent run without throwing his toys out of his pram then he'll remain a good player rather than a great player in my eyes.
No one is saying Mario hasn't been a bit of a plonker and doesn't deserve some of the criticism he gets. He does, whether black, white, yellow or whatever.
But on one level it's completely out of order for a BBC commentator to say he's thick as two short planks. Particularly when he himself isn't the sharpest tool in the box. It's also patently untrue, as was Shearer's remark about him having won nothing yet.
But a few on here seem to be getting very hot under the collar about accusations of racism and seem manically desperate to knock them and anyone talking about them down, without taking in the arguments.
Let me summarise them:
1) I'm not saying Lawrenson's remark was overtly racist, in the way that Ron Atkinson's about Deasailly was.
2) Lawrenson had already had some criticism about a remark he made earlier in the tournament that could have been perceived as racist.
3) Hansen & Green already have previous in this respect and the BBC have been forced to apologise on behalf of both of them. The remarks may not have been overtly racist but showed great insensitivity from a racial point of view.
4) Hansen's use of the word "coloured" betrayed an attitude rooted in the 1970'3 and 80's, when these men (Hansen, Lawrenson & Green) were in their late teens or 20's and attitudes to black players were completely different in both the dressing room and on the terraces. Even in 2005 our very own Joey Barton got involved in that fracas in Thailand because he referred to two black players (one of whom was his own team-mate) as "two useless niggers".
5) What Garth Crooks may or may not have said is largely irrelevant, other than the fact that BBC commentators shouldn't be making generic, insulting remarks about individuals. I understand the point being made but it doesn't "prove" the BBC doesn't have a problem with the racial attitudes exhibited by its commentators.
6) I don't think I said the BBC was institutionally racist but that it was possible to compare the attitudes exhibited by H, L & G with the attitudes exhibited by a group of largely white, working class males in the police force, which doesn't even have a minimum educational requirement and which has been described as institutionally racist.
