I enjoyed the reaction to the piece I wrote on Nile Rodgers’ comments about his sun tan on the Chris Evans radio show. I found Rodgers’ comments toe-curling, not least because he felt the need to make them, and I could sense Evans’ unease. Not everyone agreed with me and that’s fine. Perhaps my zero tolerance to all things even vaguely racist goes a bit too far sometimes. Better that, I suggest, than the other way round. But then something happens to make me think twice. Racism is not, always, black and white. Take Paul Gascoigne.
Gazza has been charged by the CPS for making a racially aggravated joke. Whilst in the Wolverhampton Civic Hall, he told a joke about a black bouncer, saying that as he was sitting in a dark corner he would not be able to see him unless he smiled. Or something like that. I am not going to excuse him for that. Well, not really, not totally. Maybe a bit.
This is, once again, a joke about the past. How things used to be and, I suspect, still are today in some places. Casual racism, perhaps, and not the crass racism of the past. I feel sorry for the victim and, you may be surprised by what I say next, given my last offering, even more sorry for Gazza.
Paul Gascoigne, lest we forget, is not the sharpest tool in the box. He had one gift which was football. If I was to pick an England team from my lifetime, Gazza would be in it. The boy could play. He was up there with the very best of all time. But when it was all over, what was left? We know the story, we saw the pictures. Nights out on the lash with Chris Evans and Danny Baker, gruesome stories of domestic abuse and then alcoholism.
Have you seen the pictures of Gazza when he has fallen off the wagon? Obviously the red tops love it when he appears in a state of disrepair, a dishevelled shambolic mess. The Sun’s resident doctor pointed out that the next step for Gazza would be death. Can you imagine how you would feel if you read something like that about yourself? As Don Henley put it in Dirty Laundry, “It’s interesting when people die.”
So has Gazza done wrong? The CPS clearly thinks so because they say there is a reasonable chance of obtaining a conviction in a court of law. But, as I was reminded today, when will the CPS be taking action against Boris Johnson? Johnson referred to “picaninnies … with watermelon smiles”, the term meaning a method of dehumanising black people in the American South. (Johnson later apologised, by the way, but only because it was “sad” people had been offended. So not a real apology.)
There we appear to have it: one law for a poorly educated alcoholic ex footballer and quite another for the multimillionaire Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, formerly of Eton and Oxford. Yes, yes: two wrongs and all that. They don’t make a right, but they make a contradiction.
How about a ‘sorry’ from Gazza? It is well known that the man does not really have a bad bone in his body, but he has plenty of demons that have at times made him do bad and stupid things. A real apology, not like Johnson’s “it was sad you were offended” non-apology.
In this instance, I fail to see how a criminal prosecution will help anyone. We have enough issues in society with bigotry and racism among so called mainstream politicians, never mind struggling former footballers, one of whom has made a slow-witted comment about a black bouncer who was probably there to protect him.
I thought racism was black and white, a large part of me still does. But I have been moved by argument because of one specific case. Boris Johnson’s racial slur was far worse than Gazza’s, not least because Johnson had the best education money can buy and Gazza’s education was all about his feet.
More than anything, I fear the effect a prosecution would have on the vulnerable ex player. It’s not a fuss about nothing because he may have been an idiot, trying to make a joke which came from another era and truly wasn’t funny.
I don’t say forgive and forget, but forgive and learn. Let’s make sure the bouncer is okay with things and make sure that Gazza has the chance to repair his life.
