Sometimes the best, the strongest, the epitomes of human physicality don’t even seem human themselves. Professional sports players sometimes seem too powerful to be like us, but they are like us. An article from BBC shows us the theme of how even celebrities are affected by the same everyday problems, like the subject of racism, as everyday people.
Racism is the belief that one race is better or superior to another. Many people believe this, and treat others poorly for being another race than them. This football team has been shown racism, and they are tired of it. Incidents of racist abuse have increased in these last couple years. For example, in December someone threw a banana peel at Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang when he scored a goal for Arsenal Raheem Sterling from Manchester Sterling was also shown racist abuse. Sterling said that the way newspapers were portraying young black football players in a way is helping fuel racism. There were also 6 other examples of racist abuse in this article.
The author wrote this article with a purpose. They wanted to tell others how people like football players stood up against racism. This could be showing those who read it that they can also stand up for what they believe in. Writing an article about this issue shows that even celebrities go through struggles. They really are normal people, further proving the theme. The journalist shows this by quoting players who received this abuse firsthand. “‘I don't want any future players to go through what I've been through in my career,’ said Danny Rose”. We don’t expect these people to have these problems because of how successful and glorified they can be. But here they are, warning others of these types of issues.
From one of the incidents we know that a banana was thrown by a crowd member even though one of his own team had scored a goal. By including this particular in the article we see that these famous, talented players get hate even though they did nothing wrong further pointing to the theme. The writer might have shared this to show everyone what really happens on the field.
This article showed us that footballers are people just like us. They go through the same problems and rude treatment as the rest of us does. Through each incident shared in the article, we can see situations in which they were shown racist treatment. By publishing this article, the writer opened up the world to what celebrities go through on a daily basis. Just because of a different skin color or feature, these famous people are targeted by peoples’ rude and mocking behavior. By boycotting social media, these professional football players are showing that they will not tolerate one player being thought of as less than another because of his skin color. The writer effectively communicated the theme: even celebrities are affected by the same everyday problems, like the subject of racism, as everyday people.
Works Cited
“Professional Footballers to Boycott Social Media for 24 Hours in Racism Protest - BBC Sport.” BBC News, BBC, www.bbc.com/sport/football/47982403.
By: Britalit group