To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re: It's not "racism", but IDENTITY - stupid!

Date: Saturday 14 May 05

Dear Martin,
 
In response to your response (see below) to my email (Confusing feelings of racial identity with "racism"): I agree, the offensive jeering of the Spanish spectators is not acceptable, whatever the reason, but it is important to understand that it is not, for the most part, an expression of "racism", but in response to an offended sense of identity.
 
I feel it myself, so I'm pretty sure that I know what I'm talking about.
 
The jeering spectators do not identify with the black players. That is why they jeer them. Not because they think they are inferior. If anything, black players of often superior players. Superficially, it may seem like racism, but deep down, it's about IDENTITY.
 
Your attitude is not just unhelpful, but positively harmful, because it serves to confirm the sense of inferiority that many black people have towards Europeans (understandably, in view of their achievements over the past 3 millennia, with the consequence that we live in what is very much a white man's world). There may well be some feelings of racial and cultural superiority involved in the jeering as well, but that's a human failing that most of us (perhaps you are an exception) have in some degree (a way of compensating for one's own personal inadequacies by identifying with the achievement of others).  You blow up its importance out of all proportion and call it "racism", which is the modern equivalent of medieval accusations of heresy and witchcraft. Now, as then, I suspect that some of the nastiest people are among those making the accusations.
 
The Nazis criminally misused people's natural need for a sense of identity by creating (and enforcing) an exclusive and intense sense of German identity involving the vilification of non-Germans. That was racism. And ugly and vile it was too.
 
You seem to have no difficulty understanding ethnic minorities' need to maintain and cultivate their own sense of identity. But when their European hosts do the same, you interpret it as nascent (if not blatant) racism.
 
By interpreting "monkey chanting" as racism (rather than as unacceptably bad manners) you give credibility to the idea that black people are in fact inferior. The black player may look more like an ape, but it is the monkey chanters who are behaving more like one (that is what should be emphasised). Monkeys and apes are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom and there is, of course, a striking resemblance. White people may appear less ape-like than those with darker skin and flatter noses, but our behaviour betrays us to be  as much ape as anyone else.
 
We're Earth's "Greatest Ape". In fact, I'm developing a theory of society based on this observation (makes a lot more sense than Max's historical materialism and class struggle). Christian fundamentalist are not the only one's in denial about man's animal origins. The fact is that our entire socio-economic order is deeply rooted in our primitive animal nature (Capitalism has developed and been honed to take advantage it, which is why in many respects it works so well). If it doesn't offend people's religious beliefs, it offends their religiously held views on economics in general, and on their own way of life and making a living in particular. We prefer to remain in denial than face up to our own responsibility for what we are doing to our planet, i.e. participating in the plundering of it.

Roger Hicks
www.spaceship-earth.org

Email from Martin Jacques (12.05.05): thanks for your email. i think it is clear we do disagree quite fundamentally although i would in no way seek to deny the importance of racial identity. the spanish crowd didn't just boo black english players, they boo black club players week in week out. is that acceptable in your view? is that not a manifestation of racism - that these people are inferior [that is what monkey chanting signifies].