The truth is Peter Beardsley is no more unconsciously racist than any one of my ex teammates, myself, you or anyone else in society, as we are all racially biased based on the way we were conditioned to think and the environment we were brought up in. Let’s start with Peter Beardsley, my own teammate. Then there’s ‘ Liam Neeson deserves a medal for wanting to kill a black man,’ ‘ Barnes says Jadon Sancho should get on with it’ and ‘ Barnes criticises Sterling.’ That’s when I started to see headlines like ‘ Barnes says Beardsley is right about African players,’ ‘ Barnes says it’s just banter’ and ‘ Bernardo Silva incident is just banter.’ When it became apparent to them that I wouldn’t be going along with their narrative that the evils of racism is because of football – or the police, or anyone who happened to get caught and we can use as a scapegoat and crucify – their interest in me waned, and the reporting of my true words and thoughts changed. While that was on the cards, reporting of my thoughts and words were fairly representative of my intentions. I engaged with them, asked them whether I’d be able to drive my own agenda through them.įootball is bad, but what’s much worse is the socio-economic, as well as vocational and educational climate black people in the inner cities find themselves, and we need to highlight it and try to affect change there for future generations. So many elite organisations and establishments have approached me to be one of the main spokesmen and advocates for them. The difference now is the way in which my words are reported. John Barnes is the exact same person, with the exact same messages, delivered in the exact same way. Now I’m perceived as an apologist for racism! Six months ago I was the voice of reason, a man with well thought out clear messages and perceptions and a champion in the fight against racism. WHAT’S HAPPENED to John Barnes is becoming a popular question.
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