mural in football star’s hometown becomes anti-racist symbol | Sports

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LONDON (AP) Through children’s pens and pencils, England is fighting racism.

After Marcus Rashford and two other black players missed shots on goal in the closing moments of the national football team’s European Championship loss to Italy, fanatics disfigured a mural of the Manchester star United and launched racist slurs on the three on social networks. The Manchester children stood up for Rashford, filling the spaces on the wall with messages of support, encouragement and consolation.

Hope you won’t be sad for (sic) a long time because you are such a good person, wrote 9-year-old Dexter Rosier. I’m proud of you. You will always be a hero.

The mural, which occupies a brick wall not far from where Rashford grew up, has become a symbol of England’s struggle against bigotry that has marred the sport loved by people from all walks of life. The fight unfolds across the country as politicians and pundits, athletes and activists react to the racist comments that surfaced after the defeat and undermined the sense of national unity created by England’s uplifting race at his first big football championship final since 1966.

Online abuse of black gamers highlights problems created by a view of what it means to be English, which is rooted in visions of past glories of empire and colonialism and often surfaces at sporting events international, said Professor Bridget Byrne, director of the Center on the Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester.

The work to achieve racial justice in the UK is far from over, and that’s what it revealed, she said. While racism has become less socially acceptable to express itself openly, it is still very much present in British culture.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quick to condemn racism and slammed social media companies for not doing enough to stop the spread of hate on their platforms. He said he would use a meeting with company executives on Tuesday to reiterate the urgent need for action.

Critics said Johnson and his government failed to resolve the issue at the start of the Euro 2020 tournament, when some fans booed the England squad for symbolically kneeling at the start of matches to highlight the issue. racism.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, whose department oversees police and home affairs, came under special scrutiny after opposing what she called gestural politics and said fans had the right to boo. In an interview last month, Patel also criticized protests last summer by the British Black Lives Matter movement, including one where a statue of a 17th-century slave trader was toppled, as efforts to rewrite history.

England player Tyrone Mings berated Patel for playing politics on Monday after calling on the police to take action against those who subjected football players to vile racist abuse.

You can’t stoke the fire at the start of the tournament by branding our anti-racist post as gestural politics and then pretending to be disgusted when the very thing being campaigned against happens, Mings wrote on Twitter.

Marvin Sordell, a former professional soccer player who advises the Englands Football Association on diversity, said the outpouring of disgust from politicians and pundits was sadly familiar.

We still see the conviction, Sordell told the BBC. It’s the same for a few days and then we sort of get back to normal and then another mishap occurs. We kind of live in this cycle that goes on and on. At some point, we have to break the cycle. At some point, it’s not enough to just be outraged. We have to do something.

Rashford, who grew up a few miles from Manchester United’s historic Old Trafford Stadium, joined the England national team at the age of 18 after scoring a series of goals for his home club. The son of a single mother who sometimes skipped meals to make sure his five children didn’t have to, he became a national icon last year when he led a campaign that forced the government to feed children who lacked free school meals during the schools pandemic closure.

Responding to the abuse he suffered on Sunday night and the outpouring of support from fans, Rashford, now 23, spoke about his teammates and the brotherhood created by their successes and failures this summer.

I can take the review of my performance all day, my penalty wasn’t good enough, it should have come in, he wrote in a Twitter post that has been liked nearly a million times. But I will never apologize for who I am and where I come from.

This is the district of Manchesters Withington, where local artists painted a two-story black and white mural of Rashford after the success of its school meals campaign.

Abi Lee, deputy headmistress at nearby St. Pauls Church of England Primary School, said the students were upset by the way Rashford and his teammates were treated, so she took them to the mural to show them how people fight racism.

We wanted them to see that nothing can knock you out if you keep fighting, Lee said.

Nicola Wellard said her children went to bed crying after England’s defeat dashed hopes for a European Championship this year. But they were more upset when they found out that racists had targeted local hero Rashford.

On Tuesday afternoon, her 11-year-old son Dougie proudly pasted his own message on the mural.

He only missed one penalty, Dougie wrote. He doesn’t deserve this.

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