Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн

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Once Minter had drawn the colour line, the fight had taken on a sinister tone. Black had beaten white. Black had beaten up white. Embarrassed white. England’s ego had been bruised. And they couldn’t accept it. My father was happy for Hagler, but the racial conflict had disturbed him into silence. England had lost more than just a boxing contest.

Until the first beer can flashed past Hagler’s head, I had not completely inherited my father’s support for the American. I couldn’t grasp how Hagler’s skin colour could be the cause of such fury. And sport seemed like such an inappropriate platform for such clashes. Didn’t seem real. But then this was the first time I’d ever witnessed racially motivated violence.

Fright.

The fight sullied my impression of sport. Couldn’t quite re-live sport in my mind anymore. Couldn’t quite use sport to alleviate the boredom of school anymore. Couldn’t quite hide as freely behind my daydreams anymore.

Distrust. Fright.

A year after the fight, my sisters were talking about a fight at Little Ilford where a white girl had called a black girl a ‘black bitch’. When I heard this, I laughed. Paula, my eldest sister, turned to me and snapped, ‘Why are you laughing?’ I didn’t know. I probably thought the word ‘bitch’ was naughty. ‘Don’t you understand?’ Paula said, before explaining that the term was a racist insult. I didn’t understand and walked off in a sulk.