'Sorry seems to be the hardest
word', Elton John once sang. If there's one person
who really ought to be saying sorry for his
musical crimes it is Elton John. But what does he
get for torturing innocent civilians with the
nauseating schmaltz of Candle in the
Wind? Only a bleeding knighthood, that's
what.
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Ron Atkinson on the other hand has
been in a state of perpetual contrition ever since
he called Chelsea's Marcel Desailly a 'fucking
lazy thick nigger' in April. But the more the big
orange fella says sorry, the more opprobrium seems
to be heaped upon him. There's so much
inconsistency in the way we treat our national
treasures isn't there?
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A few weeks ago I jokingly
suggested that Brian Cole, the Charlton PA
announcer who was sacked for his 'Crystal Palarse'
jibe, should be sent to apologise in person to the
people of Croydon just as Spectator
editor Boris Johnson had been dispatched to
Merseyside to apologise for his magazine's rather
crass comments about the hubcap-thieves, er, I
mean good citizens of Liverpool. This week the BBC
aired a documentary, What Ron
Said, in which the now-disgraced football
summariser agreed to undergo a strikingly similar
act of penance.
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Big Ron was sent to America for a
crash course in black history and to learn why the
n-word is so taboo - as if he hadn't twigged
already after finding his broadcasting career in
tatters for using the word. Ron visited the Jim
Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Michigan
where he learned about the cultural significance
of golliwogs and sambo dolls. Far from
experiencing a racial epiphany Ron was just
nonplussed. What on earth did the programme-makers
think they would achieve by this? That learning
first hand about slavery and segregation from a
black man (albeit a sociology professor) would
help 'cure' his racism? Perhaps they hoped that
Ron would achieve closure in his televised quest
for self-discovery by acknowledging his inner Ku
Klux Klansman. An increasingly irritated Ron,
however, refused to admit that he was a racist.
'Politically incorrect, yeah, but who isn't?' he
chuckled.
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Back in England Ron was subjected
to further indignity, enduring chastisement by the
self-righteous Darcus Howe, and undergoing race
awareness training with a group of white
pensioners (one of whom made the astute
observation that political correctness, rather
than bringing people together, only creates
further division). If the programme-makers had
hoped that Ron would tearfully confess: 'My name
is Ron Atkinson and I am a racist' they would have
been disappointed. Ron stubbornly continued to
reject the charge of racism and felt that he had
apologised enough.
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What Ron
Said reminded me of Father Ted's ham-fisted
attempt to atone for offending the local Chinese
community by organising a multicultural
celebration ('It's a great honour and privilege
for me to present this celebration of the wide
diversity of cultures that exists today on Craggy
Island, namely Chinese people and people from
Craggy Island'). Big Ron probably calculated that
this public humiliation would aid his
rehabilitation. But, as he is discovering, while
saying sorry might be in vogue among disgraced
public figures, it does not necessarily salvage
your career. Ron's problem is that he hasn't
signed the 'I am a racist' confession that his
interrogators demand. It's the wrong kind of sorry
and consequently his exile continues in the
broadcasting wastelands of Channel 5.
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The programme has provoked a vexed
debate about the correct length of Ron's
banishment. Has he been punished enough or should
he serve a longer sentence? Frankly I think this
is a bullshit debate. The whole sorry saga shows
that the meaning of racism has become twisted
beyond recognition. Racism used to denote the
unequal treatment of black people. Today it is has
been reduced to a question of what people say and
think. Anti-racism is no longer about forging an
egalitarian society but about minding one's racial
Ps and Qs.
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That Ron Atkinson should become
the latest high-profile victim of the Semantic
Inquisition is the ultimate irony. Ron Atkinson
was the first British football manager to practise
equal treatment - the essence of anti-racism. At a
time when black footballers were dismissed as
flair players who lacked discipline, Atkinson
built his West Brom team around the trio of Lawrie
Cunningham, Brendan Batson and Cyril Regis. But
while he was colour-blind in his team selection,
Big Ron never learnt the PC racial etiquette that
has since become compulsory and that was to prove
his undoing.
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At the end of What Ron
Said celebrity Baggies' fan Frank Skinner
lamented the fact that, if Ron were to die
tomorrow, he would not get the tributes he
deserves but would be remembered as 'Ron the
racist'. Sadly, thanks to the degraded and
trivialised way in which racism is now understood,
What Ron Said may forever eclipse What Ron Did.
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