Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн
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The rivalry between the two fighters allegedly began in Las Vegas when Hagler refused to shake Minter’s hand. Minter’s stablemate Kevin Finnegan, a former Hagler victim, added fuel to the fire by claiming that Hagler once told him, ‘I don’t touch white flesh.’4 These were unsubstantiated claims from a man who had admitted to hating Hagler. Hagler had previously said, ‘I make a point of never shaking hands with future opponents.’5 He preferred to shake hands with his rivals after they had fought.
Minter’s reported racial comment set the tone for the contest. By also wearing Union Jack underpants at the weigh-in for the fight and then entering the ring with an oversized Union Jack and St George banner, Minter did little to subdue the jingoistic atmosphere that had built up at a time when England had been bursting with racial tension.
England’s economic depression made race relations sink to one of its lowest points. By 1980, England had entered recession and unemployment topped two million. The blame for the country’s lack of jobs quickly turned to immigrant populations, fuelled further by Thatcher’s Tory government and the mainstream press. Demonising blacks and immigrants of colour sold papers, won votes. How perverse. The National Front and their supporters needed no excuse to instigate random acts of violence against blacks and Asians; the people they blamed for just about every problem in society.