It seems to me that it is commonly accepted that there is no such thing as a ‘racist individual’ – part of the achievement(?) of anti-racist work on hate speech – instead people practice racism/participate in racist actions. I wonder how useful this is as an anti-racist approach. Whilst I don’t think making value judgements about people i.e ‘you are racist’ is a progressive sensible strategy in countering racism, I do not think discussing racism as an external power that possesses people from time to time, ‘i.e you are not racist you just do racist things’, is working in the British context. It naturalises racism so that it becomes akin to something like gravity – a part of our reality and independent of our control. I’m afraid that yes, practising racism casts shade on a persons character. Their racist actions are not separate from themselves. So lets have it in no uncertain terms, Luis Saurez is wrong. [Silence]. There is no clause to add to that. But character is not fixed. It is not that we call out Saurez, Terry et al so we can crucify them from our moral high ground. It is so that we can 1. Incentivise personal reform (which is not truly the jurisdiction of anti-racism). 2.Penalize (scary word I know) these individuals for being willing participants in a political and economic regime that we believe should no longer be the status quo in this society. Racism is about more than hurt feelings, let us also be clear on that.

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