Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
And if you go to them, they have an autograph.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
But when I looked out into the street, you saw normal average working class white, black people walking, having to hide in corners, being abused.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
And no one speaks for them.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
They speak for me.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
and I've got money, I've got a car, I've got a house and stuff like that.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
So really, from that point, we understood that when you're looking at tackling racism or bias, because of course you have bias towards women as well, but unfortunately we're looking at it from the elite perspective, either footballers or politicians, rather than what's going down in the cities for the average woman or the average gay person or whatever.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
So I look at racism in a different way.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
I think we're doing it the wrong way.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
I think we're using football as an example of change, but it can't be, because if all it took for racism to rear its ugly head again was three black players to miss a penalty...
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
That meant that... All we're doing is teaching people how to keep quiet.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
Well, once again, it's different for everybody.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
And I use Righty as an example.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
I used to call Righty Malcolm X and I was Martin Luther King, the diplomatic.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
Because Righty deals with it a different way because his experience is different.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
I came from a middle-class, elite Jamaican family.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
My mother's family started the first Jamaican government.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
My mother's family started the first Jamaican government with Michael Manley, Norman Manley in the 50s.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
And what they quickly realised is that this is a new elite black government.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
And they're going to discriminate against black working class people and they're black themselves.
Stick to Football
John Barnes: Liverpool Legend, Battles with United & Tackling Racism | Stick to Football EP 112
So when you talk about bias or racism, it's also to do with class.