Racist Abuse Aimed At Manchester United Stars Doesn't Surprise Me, Which Is A Huge Shame

31/01/2021

I am appalled at the ongoing racist abuse being shared on social media platforms, but sadly I'm not surprised. There is a rising tide of hatred spewing its way across all these online forums; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram chief among them.

Marcus Rashford is the latest premiership footballer to be targeted by these weak-minded thugs. I can only assume that these nasty cowards are jealous of their success and inwardly ashamed of their own failures in life.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter do... eventually... take these posts down and, as long as the narrow-minded idiots aren't famous and powerful, they tend to delete accounts for repeated abuse. Sadly, the more famous or powerful the culprit, and therefore the more widespread their reach and potential damage, the longer it takes for the social media companies to take action.

This is unacceptable.

It is good that, as examples, the Twitter accounts of Donald Trump and Katie Hopkins and the other social media accounts of famous racists like Paul Golding and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, have been closed down. It's disgraceful that it took those companies so long to act.

Personally, I think these thugs need to be brought to task for their abhorrent behaviour.

If you share racist or xenophobic material on social media, you should be 'outed'. Employers should be given the opportunity to disassociate themselves from the vile views of their employees; which includes the right to sack them for bringing the employer's reputation into dispute.

That isn't going to stop the evil posts though. The nasty thugs who post such abuse don't think about the outcomes; they don't care. If they did lose their jobs, they wouldn't accept their responsibility for what has happened. They would simply blame those who had been the brunt of their hate in the first place.

Somehow, we need to address the hate within. We need to educate those who share such vile posts online and, importantly, we need to save their offspring from being groomed into adopting their hateful beliefs.

The fight to end racism is incredibly important and it's time the ignorant people in our society need to be taught just how disgusting their views are.

It isn't just racist abuse.

There are too many idiots demonstrating rampant xenophobia against anyone who is different to them.

We need to build a better, more inclusive society.