Do you think there are any truly racist players playing at the top level? I may be naive but i find it hard to imagine there are many proper racists with a deep seeded hatred of a whole other race of people playing at the top level. It seems like it would be extremely diffecult to hide that sort of thing day in day out with the make up of so many top teams these days.
Without meaning to cause offence, I think this is a little naive. I would agree that there would be few "proper racists", as you call them. But racism extends far beyond overt displays of deep seeded hatred.
IMO, there are a lot of people who genuinely claim to not be racist, but still hold some degree of prejudice. Often it will come through in racist jokes or remarks, which although contextual are actually believed to some degree. Those same people will sometimes use a defence such as "but I have black friends" which to be honest is no defence at all. I'm not saying that anyone who makes jokes or says they have black friends is a racist, but sometimes that is the case.
Often it is also the fact that such attitudes are ingrained, so although someone may be far less racist than the preceding generation, racist attitudes linger to some extent.
All of these things mean that people can most definitely "hide that sort of thing" because the fact is that there are others that hold the same view.
Unfortunately with ingrained attitudes like this it is hard to change anything in a hurry.
Yes i tend to agree with what you've said here. Was discussing this at work today, though not in the sporting context, were discussing the movie "The Help" (which is pretty good). The fact that these sorts of attitudes were ingrained through generations was why we didnt see things changing dramatically in the near future.


