UP412 Racists, riots and sport's Twitter exodus

“As soon as the Southport murders happened, the way Muslims specifically were targeted has made you question again whether we do belong, whether deep down in the end, we're always having to justify our existence,” says Azeem Rafiq, the former professional cricketer on today’s podcast. “On an individual level. I’m not sleeping, I’m patrolling around the house, covering letterboxes up, that sort of thing is what all of us have been doing, getting in touch with each other, making sure if you do have to go out, that people know where you are and you're on a very, very high alert.”

Today’s conversation is about the impact and implications of the racist rioting that followed the devastating and tragic murder of three children in Southport on July 29th.

Azeem Rafiq has written a book, called “It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism: What Cricket’s Dirty Secret Reveals About Our Society, records his experiences confronting institutional racism while a player at Yorkshire County Cricket Cub.

He is joined by Sanjay Bhandari MBE, who was appointed chair of Kick It Out the anti racism charity in 2019, from where he lobbies government and sports governing bodies for greater black and Asian representation across every level of football, and helped construct legislation for the new Online Safety Act, which was passed earlier this year. 

We talk about the role of Twitter and it’s owner Elon Musk, the role of sports governing bodies and their sponsors, and we ask, for all the talk of it’s power to influence societal change, does sport really matter?

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