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This Article Will Not Solve Racism in Football | By Antonio Rüdiger
Do you want to hear my story? Do you want to understand?
www.theplayerstribune.com
Maybe this will be a good lesson for everyone. Maybe. But I’m not so sure about that. The thing about lessons is that you have to actually listen if you want to learn anything.
How many people really want to listen?
How many people saw this post and clicked the like button because it made them feel good?
How many people actually read my words, and thought deeply about them?
You know what’s so funny? Sometimes people tell me, “Toni, why do you care? It’s just trolls on social media. It’s not real people.”
Ha. Come on.
Over the last few weeks, I have received many messages saying basically the same thing:
“Toni, I’m sorry.”
These are not bots. These are real people, apologizing to me for the horrible abuse that they sent me in January.
But ask yourself, why are they doing this? Do you think they looked inside their hearts and decided to educate themselves? Do you think they took a long look in the mirror?
I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.
But I know that we’re winning. So now I’m useful to them. Maybe I’m even a human being in their eyes.
I don’t have any hate in my heart for those people. But I would say one thing to them: If you are genuine in what you say, and you are really sorry, don’t send me a tweet.
Step away from your phone for a minute. Stop tweeting.
Educate yourself. Read a book on Black history, and really open your mind to the experiences of other people. This is much more meaningful than sending a tweet. This is where we can start.
Listen, I am not naive. I don’t expect everything to change overnight. I don’t expect the football world to come together to kill racism in 48 hours like they killed the Super League.
We will not solve this issue with a social media campaign, or with this article.