White’s your point?

The irony wasn’t lost on me that they published that article the same week that they made some bold statements about punishing racism at the World Cup. I happen to like Birchall because of that amazing goal he scored against Bahrain. Could care less about his fair hair. Stupid story, but there will be more where that came from.

Posted from  United States

Stacy-Marie: I was shaking my head in disbelief as I was reading the FIFA article. Your point is very well put.

This does not have to do with football, but I want to tell you about my funny experience with the “race/ethnicity” issue.

You know that I am Iranian. Back in the 80s when I got my first job out of college, my employer had to profile the ethnic diversity of their employee base for the city of New York. So they sent these forms around that we had to fill out. In the “Ethnicity” section they had the regular choices like Caucasian, Asian, African, Arab, ……etc.

As you know Iran is in Asia, so I checked out the Asian box. They told me I can not because I am NOT Asian! So I checked Caucasian. They told me I can not check Caucasian because I am from the “Middle East”! They wanted me to check “Arab”, but I refused because that would be wrong. Iranians are NOT Arabs! Finally, I was told to check “Others”!

My employer had x number of Caucasians, y number of African Americans, ……., and one and only one “Other”. That was me!

For the next couple of years I remained to be the only “Other”. Then the city added “Middle Eastern” to the form, but then there was the language thing! Persian was not a choice of language in front of the Middle Eastern category, so then I became the only speaker of “Other” language!

I still wonder why we insist on categorizing ourselves. We are all people, aren’t we?

Posted from  United States

Unbef**kingliveable! Someone must tell these Fifa guys to take their heads of their asses.

Great story Afshin!

Its bad enough to have to battle the Hooligans, now you have to unexpectedly fight the crudeness of the football establishment. My father-in-law was once serving a patron in a supermarket where he was employed and the woman accused him wrongly of being a bigot in serving her. He said, “Excuse me Madame I don’t understand I’m color-blind.” I look at that picture and I see a footballer that plays for T&T. Period. I wish FIFA did also. Their lack of sensitivity to this issue is appaling and leaves one incredulous. It also contributes to more tension instead of lessening it. You just shake your head. This type of thing just has to be condemned wherever it surfaces. Unfortunately, its a neverending battle.

Posted from  United States

Nice write-up Stacie-Marie

Having grown up in Trinidad, I know exactly where you are coming from. I understand the curiosity about Birchall, but hopefully the focus will soon be more about football and not about his skin color. Sounds a bit naive, I guess. But history shows that it is the ‘natural’ progression of things, but it takes time.

Nowadays we do not even bat an eyelid when a Thierry Henry suits up for France, or a Kluivert for Holland. It wasn’t always so. It is a bit disappointing to see this sort of story published by FIFA, but if we were to look on the bright side, I think they were trying to give it a positive spin…don’t crucify me, I always try to find the good in these things

In the end, we all have our stereotypes and it takes life experiences to reshape them, eliminate them or even reinforce them. Birchy looks different from the typical Trinidadian football player, Assamoah looks different from the typical German player…so what..let’s just play ball.

Posted from  United States

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Posted from  United States

“Though a number of the Soca Warriors are British-born – including goalkeeper Shaka Hislop – Birchall stands out for his fair hair and pale complexion. But with eight straight starts and two goals, notably a 30-yard stunner in the decisive play-off against Bahrain, Birchall has settled quickly into the fold.”

Perhaps you are over analysing the article. ‘Birchall has settled quickly into the fold’ could simply mean that he has quickly settled into the team, as all new players need to when joining a team. It seems harsh to interpret it as you have done SMI.

Shaka Hislop, though being born in the UK, has played for Trinidad in the past. The fact is, Birchall is white and does stand out from the rest of the team. Given that he is essentially English and playing against England also adds to the mix, and makes him a player worth profiling.

While the ’sun sea and sand’ stereotypes may anger some people, one shouldn’t forget that the Caribbean charm is something that goes along with this stereotype. And you can bet that, because of this charm, when we play our games, all neutrals will be supporting us! Remember Jamaica in ‘98? So lets look at the positives as well…

Posted from  United Kingdom

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Posted from  United States

I think you may be reading too much into the paragraph, though the title of the article IS politically incorrect.

They should have just used his name in the title and not mention colour.

I think people are curious and where there is curiousity there is a story.

When I first saw Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink playing for Chelsea I was curious…

I think it’s similar with Birchall. What I displayed with Jimmy was not racism, but I had pre-conceived notions of what his name should be like.

This pre-conception is related to Pre-judging. And Pre-judging and Prejudice are the same thing. So, often people are prejudicial without being racist. Racism is the fundamental belief that a race is better or superior to another.

One key thing about eliminating racism is to stop highlighting peoples race and I think this is where the fifa article erred. “Birchall the new warrior” or “Birchall, an England-born warrior” and a photo would have been sufficient… people would have inferred the rest.

Posted from  Canada

TMac, I wondered exactly what you state about the English connection, why that wasn’t highlighted instead of his whiteness? The title itself causes race to be the focus even if that wasn’t the intent of the writer.

Posted from  United States

[...] Stacy-Marie Ishmael responds to a FIFA news story expressing surprise that the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup team has a white member, with a reminder that it’s important to “militate against stereotypes wherever possible”. She also points to some of the commemorative items being produced as tributes to the team, and links to Caribbean Free Radio’s latest podcast, which focuses on what host country Germany is expecting of the Caribbean visitors. [...]

Posted from  United States

As you described it, the headline is just that – a grabber.

Its not suprising to me that people are going to be more interested in reading about a “white trinidad player”, than they would be in reading about a “trinidadian player”.

So from the publishing and marketing perspective, i think its a case where alluding to whiteness will get me more readers.

However, the article doesnt really describe trinidad or trinidadians in a “sun, sea and stereotypically” way.

Your comment – What, exactly, is that supposed to mean? That despite his ‘fair hair and pale skin’ Birchall has integrated into the squad?

I agree with DK here in that you may be over analysing. Truth is Birchall, due to his physical appearance, does stand out (visually). The fact that the next sentence refers to his fitting into the team does not necessarily imply “despite”.

In essence he looks different but he fits in due to the fact that football is what really matters in the end.

I guess an underlying issue is it really wrong or politically incorrect to highlight Birchall’s whiteness? If so, when Halle Berry was “the first black woman to win an oscar”, was reference to that politically incorrect too? How do we decide …..?

Posted from  United States

There are a couple of things with which I took issue.

As per my first paragraph, I’m irritated by the fact that Birchall is getting attention not because he’s a good footballer – which he is – but primarily because he’s a white footballer playing for Trinidad. Why not wax eloquent about the goal that salvaged our Bahrain game. Birchall is not getting the credit that he merits – or to put it another way, his skin colour is getting more attention that it’s worth.

Whatever the ‘political correctness’ of the issue, it irks me that all coverage of Birchall has revolved around his being an ‘anomaly’, rather than him being invaluable to the Warrior midfield. Of course, as the old argument goes, the latter assertion won’t sell newspapers or capture readers. This is patronising. The world doesn’t know anything about the Warriors. Articles like these don’t help.

As for the ’sun sea stereotypes’ – I didn’t mean that literally, especially not regarding this article. What I meant is that I’ve seen too much lazy and uninformed ‘journalism’ when it comes to coverage of the Warriors and the greater Caribbean. FIFA could have done better than that headline.

Posted from  United Kingdom

Stacy-marie, I see your point and agree with you. Well said.

dwn: I see your point regarding the statements made about Halle Berry. You are right… in the US context. And that is one key difference between the US and Canada. In America the headlines are that she is the first black woman to win an Oscar.

In Canada, that was a footnote. Her Performance, her LONG speech, breathlessness and tears, and her kiss from Brody got more attention.

Posted from  Canada

When I read it over a few times, I come to realize that it was meant to be a harmless ‘fill in more space’ comment. I have a Trinidadian backround myself(My father was born in Arima, Trinidad), and have been to the beautiful place myself many many times. When I first looked at the team before knowing that most were British born and whatnot, Birchall didn’t stand out to be at all, why? Because there are probably just as much asians, caucasions and mulatto’s as there are dark skinned people. When I noticed that the majority of the team are black, yes..of course he ’stands out’. When I was introduced to the comment, the first thing I said was “Oh god…who cares about their skin colour, why did they even say that?”. I knew it was going to cause problems. He’s a good player, and it was indeed wrong to emphasize is complexion. Even though it wasn’t meant to become a racial issue, it very well might, because different people look at the article in different ways.

Posted from  Canada

What’s the fuss about? The majority of Trinidadians are South Asians, not blacks. Why do they make such a big deal about a white player?

Posted from  United Kingdom

i have nothing against the white footballer , i just came to say that whosoever say that the majority of trinidadians is indian, only fast an out of place. all yuh like to push all yuh greasy ass into everything and rob lie an theif thing from ppl, and not because the airport appear to have only negro ppl leaving, that doh mean that it have more ah ally yuh than we. so know yuh damn place yuh indentured oppurtunist.

Posted from  United States