“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King Jr. –
Over the past 15 months I’ve been part of countless discussions focused on how we can apply the lessons from the response to the COVID-19 pandemic to our work on climate change. Each time we ask ourselves questions: what is the narrative that will prompt developed countries to mobilize finance to support efforts to address climate change in developing countries at the scale of the needs. What will inspire us as humans to focus on our similarities, rather than our differences?
This week I was part of no less than five discussions on that very topic. After one suchh conversation one of my colleagues said to me, “it feels like we’re talking in circles.” I agreed. It’s no one’s fault. It feels like there is an elusive answer that’s just slightly out of reach but if we keep talking about it, it will come. But it’s also endlessly frustrating for all of us as the needs for those on the frontline of climate change grow and the scale of support shrinks in proportion to those needs.
I realized a few days ago that perhaps our lack of progress on shifting the narrative on climate change is because we are thinking our heads, not our hearts. What prompted this realization was a football match, or rather the response of England’s national team to a devastating loss a barrage of hateful, racist abuse via social media which followed, directed at three of its players, all young Black men.
I must confess that though I have a great admiration for athletes I did not watch the final game of the EuroCup myself. I first learned of the racist attacks via social media on Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka the morning after the championship game. One of the colleagues who recounted what had happened both during and after the game was heartbroken, not for the loss itself, though she was disappointed of course, but for the hateful reaction from a few ignorant people. She said, “One of the players is only 19. He’s only 19 . . .” The rest of the sentence went unsaid. Left unspoken was the sentiment that we could not let the hatred of a few leave hurt Bukayo Saka’s heart nor Marcus Rashford's nor Jadon Sancho's.
The following day I received and signed an open letter to England’s national football team standing in solidarity with them and denouncing the racist attacks. I decided that I also wanted to reach out to the players myself to show my support for them personally and went on to Twitter to find their handles. What I discovered on their feeds was an outpouring of support for the three players. On its own feed, England posted an artist’s depiction of the three men with lions as their shadows with the text: Our three lions. On his social media Jadon Sanchon recounted the spectrum of emotions he has experienced the aftermath of the loss. Clearly he was hurting. Of the racist abuse he said, “sadly it’s nothing new. As a society we need to do better and hold these people accountable. Hate will never win.”
Racism has long been an issue in football which prompted a social media blackout earlier this year. In a letter entitled, “Dear England”, the manager of England’s national men’s team, Gareth Southgate, defended the decision of the team to take a stand on racism and other social justice issues. He wrote, “It’s clear to me that we are heading for a much more tolerant and understanding society, and I know our lads will be a big part of that.” He encouraged his players to stand up for what they believe in and he led by example. In his letter to England he also wrote:
I have a responsibility to the wider community to use my voice and so do the players. It’s their duty to continue to interact with the public on matters such as equality, inclusivity and racial injustice, while using the power of their voices to help put debates on the table, raise awareness and educate.
We need more leaders like Gareth Southgate. Like him, I believe that those of us that have platforms to advocate for change, have the responsibility to make use of them. Standing up for what you believe in is not always easy, a fact his players know well. Marcus Rashford was criticized for his work to address childhood food insecurity (seriously folks?). I wrote previously that I have been criticized for standing up for vulnerable people in my work. I have been told that I need to decide whether I wanted to be a researcher or an activist, but that I can’t be both. Whatever I do, whatever my job title is, I will always have the backs of the most vulnerable. Like Marcus Rashford, it's who I am. He wrote earlier this week that he would not apologize for who he is and where he comes from. Nor should he (I also don’t believe he needed to have apologized for missing the penalty kick either).
During the EuroCup tournament English players took a knee before each game to protest racial injustice, which some fans evidently booed (What? - I can’t put how I feel about that into coherent words). In an interview during the tournament British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, defended the right of fans to boo the team for taking a knee, calling the act “gesture politics” (Again, what?). In an about turn, the day after the game, Patel wrote in a Tweet that she was “disgusted” with the racist abuse aimed at the three players. The hypocrisy of her statement was called out by English player Tyrone Mings who wrote, “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.” Too right.
It is important to note that that Patel herself has faced both racism and I can imagine an extraordinary amount of gender based prejudice throughout her life and almost certainly in her career as a politician. That that is a given is so not okay and must change. However, in defending Patel during Question Period, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of Tyrone Mings, “But when he talks about the Home Secretary, let me just remind him that my right honourable friend has faced racism and prejudice all her career, of a kind he can never imagine.” That Patel has been the victim of racism and prejudice herself is unquestionable and, as I said above, is so profoundly wrong and unacceptable. But does Boris Johnson really believe that Tyrone Mings can’t imagine what that’s like? Seriously? Shouldn’t the point be that no one should face prejudice of any kind here in the UK or anywhere else? Shouldn't Johnson be outlining a plan to end racism rather normalize it?
In taking a knee English football players bring attention to racial injustice, an issue that many in the UK government do not want to contemplate. I know from my own work on racism that it’s an issue many people in general do not want to discuss – though that’s changing and this week has expedited that change. The underlying message I got in the past was: we don’t want to talk about things that are uncomfortable here (wherever here may be). But after this week it seems less cool to rebuff attempts to talk about racism. And indeed we must talk about racism to address climate change. Transformation, something we often speak about in our work on climate change, requires looking at what’s going on underneath – who is marginalized and why. And racism is a big part of that. We can no longer pretend that some lives don’t matter more than others. The COVID-19 pandemic has both highlighted and exacerbated vulnerability within and between countries and we must address the role that racism has played a role in that.
Now more than ever we need more leaders like Gareth Southgate. In the aftermath of the loss in the EuroCup final he took responsibility for his decision to send two of the players into the game with only minutes left. That’s what good leaders do. The team has said that we win together and we lose together but ultimately, good leaders take responsibility for losses and give credit to others for the wins. Clearly, Southgate wanted to give two young players their moment on the pitch. And imagine in that moment how much pressure was on them the final moments of a championship game a packed stadium at home. He couldn’t have predicted what the outcome of that decision would be, but it set in motion events that I believe will change England, and hopefully the world. Forever.
In social media posts in the days following the game, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho expressed their disbelief that they missed the penalty kicks during the final game having practiced thousands of times, both on the pitch and likely in their mind’s eye (athletes know better than anyone that visualization works). I believe that there was something more going on that evening. I think the universe had other plans. Martin Luther King Jr. once said:
“We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilizations.”
This week a few haters (relative to the amount of love expressed) provided an opportunity for the world’s heart to break open and as Rumi said, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” And the light did enter. I believe it expedited our work to end racism forever. As we all know, race does not exist biologically but is a social construct. And just as racism was constructed, it can be deconstructed. It doesn’t have to take decades to make that happen. It could happen tomorrow.
Hate has no place here (on planet Earth) and as Jadon Sancho wrote, “Hate will not win.” This is not the first time he and other BIPoC players have been subjected to racist abuse, both on and off the pitch. But it can be the last. We can make sure of that and we have a responsibility to. The outpouring of love sends the message that racism is not welcome here. Not in England and not on planet Earth. But those sentiments must be followed up and backed by government policies that end institutional and systemic racism. The message is also clear that the hypocrisy of the government must end. The players must be lauded for their activism, not criticized for it.
The three lions no longer belong to the English national team, nor to England but to the world. They have become a symbol of love. I hope that Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka feel that love (and by extension all BIPoC because love is in the midst of dismantling racism). I hope they feel proud of what they have accomplished both on the pitch as football players and off the pitch as men standing up for what is right. We have in every moment the chance to choose love and in the end, as Bukayo Saka wrote in a letter he posted on his social media today, love always wins. Every. Single. Time.
What does this mean for our work on climate policy? Well, we have to be braver for a start. Brave enough to admit that there is so much we don't know. Brave enough to centre our work around the expertise of and the needs of the most vulnerable. Brave enough to integrate new and old ways of thinking and doing, including by drawing more on ancestral and indigenous knowledge. We have to engage with, acknowledge and address the way in which colonialism and racism have shaped climate change and climate policy. We can no longer be guided by what is politically and financially acceptable for developed countries because we all know that’s a sliding scale which changes based on who needs support. We have to connect with our hearts rather than our heads and finally, and most importantly, we have to work on the premise that we are #OneHumanity.
Erin Roberts is a climate policy researcher and strategist. She works thematically on global adaptation and Loss and Damage. Her work currently focuses on empowering young climate leaders from the global South through the Climate Leadership Initiative. This week she is proud to live in England.
