ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of racism in society has long been a focus of social policy and legal intervention. This has included attacking practices and procedures that have been judged to be discriminatory in social spheres such as employment and education. The scourge of racial incitement – verbal and physical – has been challenged through both non-legal and legal approaches. The tragic killing of Stephen Lawrence in South London in 1993, the subsequent inability to bring the perpetrators to justice and the Official Inquiry which reported in 1999, highlighting the allegations of the racist practices of the police, have become a focal point in discussing the problem of racism in contemporary Britain. A major issue is how to respond to, and effectively challenge, racism. What
role does the law play? The enactment of aggravated race crime offences in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is a specific approach. It reflects developments in the United States during the past few years where there has been a proliferation of ‘hate crime’ laws aimed at confronting racist acts. Legislative provisions have both created dedicated race assault offences and considered racism as an aggravating factor. In Britain evidence shows significant increases in racist attacks and incidents. For instance Home Office figures showed 12,222 racial incidents recorded by the police in 1995/96 (Home Office 1997), which had nearly doubled by 1999/2000 to 47,810 (Home Office 1999). Similarly, the British Crime Survey, the national victim survey that has been produced every two years since 1984, is considered to provide a more precise figure for the actual level of crime. It indicates consistently that a more accurate figure for racially motivated crime is in excess of ten times that of official police figures. A focus on the more extreme and criminal forms of racism does however lead to the danger of failing to acknowledge the more subtle and pervasive forms of societal racism (see Goldberg 1997). This chapter will primarily focus on the ways that the law has been used as a
mechanism of regulation in confronting racism in sport. In confronting racism in sport, we will question the assumption that ‘more law’ is the most effective tool in fighting manifestations of racism. In regulating racism in society as a whole, the law can, at best, be seen as having been peripheral in Britain. We would
argue that as a mechanism of regulation it has largely failed to be an agent of positive change. It may have highlighted incidents of racism, but has often lacked efficacy in reducing the phenomenon of racism and impacting upon structural racism. In order to explore these issues about the role of law in combating racism
within society generally, and sport in particular, we will compare the situation in Britain with that of the United States. Here, due to the historical experiences of slavery, ‘Jim Crowism’, and the Civil Rights movement, such questions have been addressed more fully. A stated objective in the U.S. has been how to create a society where ‘colour doesn’t matter’ (Williams 1992, 1997). The problem with legal regulation is that the law is ‘colour blind’ in so far as it requires all individuals to be treated equally irrespective of race, nationality or ethnic grouping. Thus it fails to reflect the reality that minority groups in society suffer specific forms of oppression which cannot simply be overcome by legislative requirements for equal opportunities. The focus will primarily be on football as it is widely seen to be the ‘national
game’ and is therefore clearly focused within the contemporary gaze of the media and public, though cricket will also be considered. Its significance is that in being the archetypal ‘English game’ it arguably exhibits important underlying discourses concerning nationalism, racial distinctions and prejudice.
