I think you’re talking about football culture, not race mostly there.
There’s a lot of language around race which is no longer helpful. And for example you get things like Martin Crowe saying Samoans couldn’t play test cricket because they couldn’t concentrate or the hoary old chestnut that island players were great with a white 10 and/or 9. That’s clearly racist.
But if you talk about culture and attitudes to football, football styles and the ease or difficulty of different groups to participate in a sport because of access and the way it’s administered that’s a different thing.
I know for example from a pal I met that many young black African players value doing tricks or entertaining as well as winning. 1-0 to the Arsenal might not be acceptable nor Catennacio depending on how good the counters are.
There’s a few reasons kiwis are loath to talk about race. One is plenty are racist and miss being able to call things a Maori job etc etc. Another is it can be a tricky subject to express things clearly in and it often upsets people. Lastly it doesn’t come up so much in the Spike Milligan type way, but often in specifics about individuals or communities of people within a group and less about a whole culture or groups of cultures and ethnicities. And we don’t think about things as racially as we used to in many places…
But also don’t forget Boxy calling out the press for talking about Brockie’s white-boy speed or some such…
But I get what you’re saying…
There’s a lot of language around race which is no longer helpful. And for example you get things like Martin Crowe saying Samoans couldn’t play test cricket because they couldn’t concentrate or the hoary old chestnut that island players were great with a white 10 and/or 9. That’s clearly racist.
But if you talk about culture and attitudes to football, football styles and the ease or difficulty of different groups to participate in a sport because of access and the way it’s administered that’s a different thing.
I know for example from a pal I met that many young black African players value doing tricks or entertaining as well as winning. 1-0 to the Arsenal might not be acceptable nor Catennacio depending on how good the counters are.
There’s a few reasons kiwis are loath to talk about race. One is plenty are racist and miss being able to call things a Maori job etc etc. Another is it can be a tricky subject to express things clearly in and it often upsets people. Lastly it doesn’t come up so much in the Spike Milligan type way, but often in specifics about individuals or communities of people within a group and less about a whole culture or groups of cultures and ethnicities. And we don’t think about things as racially as we used to in many places…
But also don’t forget Boxy calling out the press for talking about Brockie’s white-boy speed or some such…
But I get what you’re saying…