Stand Up, Speak Up

Some time ago I saw a mostly silent commercial on Fox Soccer Channel that featured prominent European soccer players like Thierry Henry of Arsenal in England, and Ronaldinho of FC Barcelona in Spain. They held up signs decrying the racist incidents that had been happening in Europe at soccer games and urged fans to do something about it. The campaign is called Stand Up Speak Up and advertised these bracelets in support of the cause. As you can see, they’re black and white and intertwined – rather symbolic, I’d say. The bands were not available in the US, but I bought them on ebay from a German and wear them most of the time, but always on the soccer field.

Recently I channel surfed onto REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO and hit the info button to see what the episode was focusing on and saw that racism in European soccer was part of it, so I watched. It was here that I got a good handle on what the Stand Up Speak Up campaign was against. I saw footage of black players getting bananas thrown at them every time they touched the ball (not just 1 or 2 bananas, near a dozen at a time). I heard monkey sounds being made by fans whenever a player of color touched the ball. Now, this footage originated in the mid 90’s, but more recently Henry spoke of being taunted and having the back of his shirt covered in spit after having taken a corner kick in a hostile stadium. He also was the focus of Spain’s national team coach Luis Aragones when Aragones referred to Henry as “that black piece of [excrement]” in 2004. Additionally, that same year, England’s national team played Spain at the Bernabeu – a stadium of a capacity near 80000. Whenever players of color for England touched the ball, nearly the entire stadium – according to witness accounts – rained down “ooh ooh” monkey noises. This clearly was no display of distaste for England, but a display of distaste of color.

It was on this show that I realized how deep the problem appears to be in Europe, and also that it is Henry himself that began the Stand Up Speak Up campaign. I realize there is not much that I can do here, but it is a cause that I must support.