CLIVE: [Nodding
towards a TV playing a news item about the NFL] What’s make o’ that, then?
DEAN: Wassat?
C: They American
footb’llers, kneelin in the anthem?
D: Why, they
tired? Game a’n’t even strted yet,
‘av’m?
C: No, mate, it’s a
protest. They started it a while back, one
of ‘em got right in trouble, then Trump says somat about it an’ now they’re all
at it, look.
D: Why they even playin
the anthem, is it the final or somat?
C: Dunno, they just
doos that, Americans, dunnum? Not just
it the final, mind – every bleddy game.
D: Still, ‘f’they
don’t like it, they can move somewhere else, innum
C: Yeah, but that en’t
no good, is it? You could say that about
anyone – if you don’t like the weather ‘ere, move to Spain, or whatever. ‘S your country, you can live ‘ere an’ make
it better innum.
D: Yeah, or live ‘ere
an’ moan about it, same as everyone else!
C: Exactly!
Steve’a’ know, mind – Steve – mate, whassall this all about then [waving
a thumb at the TV]?
STEVE: Alright chaps,
ow bist? Woah, the 49ers quarterback
done it last year an ‘e ended up getting sacked. If you’ll ‘scuse the pun, eh!
D: What pun?
S: Never mind.
C: Yeah, but why
though? Why did ‘e do it, mind, not why
did ‘e get sacked.
S: Well, ‘e’s
protestin’.
D: What about?
S: In general,
America’s problem wiv treatin black people so bad, ‘n’ the endemic racism
that’s outlived the end of slavery by a hundred in fifty years. An’ specifitly, the Police shootin’ young
lads in the street in all that. Police
brutality, innum.
C: Oh ah.
D: Yeah, but why the
footb’llers?
S: Well, why
not? They’re famous, people’s watchin’
‘em, they got a platform. ‘Sup to they
what they wanna do wiv it.
D: Yeah, but why they
kneelin’?
S: Dunno, really –
just not standin’ with the rest, makin’ a point innum.
D: Point bein’, it’s
mixin’ politics ‘n’ sport again, right – like all that with the poppiz on the
football shirts in the England ‘n’ Scotland game. They can’t be makin’ political statements it
the football, nobody goes there for that, ‘n’ oo cares whay they thinks? I likes Rovers, but I cou’n’t give a monkiz
what Dean Gaffney thinks of Brexit.
C: Rory Gaffney, mind
D: Oh ah, Rory
Gaffney. Oo did I say?
C: Dean Gaffney.
D: Oo’s ‘e?
C: No ideal mate!
S: The other thing is
right, the 49ers feller, ‘e done it an’ only a few of ‘is mates joined in, that
was last year. Now, Trump’s ‘avin’ a pop
about it, sayin the team owners should sack ‘em, ‘n’ they all come out ‘n’ do
it.
C: Well, fair play to
um.
D: Right, yeah, fair
play, they’re sayin “don’t tell us what to do” – now it’s a sportin’ issue,
innit! ‘Cos they got the President
givin’ ‘em grief in tellin’ ‘em ‘ow to run their teams. When ‘e wuz talkin about Mexicans this ‘n’ Muslims
that, they didn’t say nuffin, ‘cos it’s not their business. They runs their team, right? When ‘e starts talkin’ about “the team owners
should do this ‘n’ that”, they stands up in says “No mate.” ‘N’ they get a load of players to join in wiv
‘em to prove the point. So, it is sport
an’ it is political, see? They’re
sayin’, “we’re rich, you can’t order us around”. They ain’t talkin’ about injustice, like the
first bloke wuz, they’re just saying “No. Fuck off.”
C: The players, mind,
they just plays football though, or the American version, whassit gotta do wiv
they?
S: Well…whassit it
gotta do with anyone then? It’s like
they fellers back in the sixdiz, with the old Black Power thing innum – they
done the salute in the anthem when they won the medals it the Olympics, dinnum?
D: That’s it, in
sixty-eight. An’ all the Americans wuz
goin mental. All the Vietnam war stuff,
they wuz against the draft – fair play to um, I reckon! I wun’t’a’ gone fightin’ in bloody Vietnam,
oo’d watta do that?
S: ‘Member Muhammad
Ali? “I en’t got no quarrel wiv the Viet
Cong!”
C: Oh ah, Muhammad
Alley, ‘e wuz The Greatest.
S: See, everyone
liked ‘im, but some people ‘ated ‘in in America – absolutely ‘ated ‘im. Thing is, mind, it is a racist country, you
gotta see that. When Obama wuz
President, some people went mental and now there’s a batlash – it’s people who
couldn’t ‘andle ‘avin a black President, so it swings back the other way an’
now you got a racist President.
C: Well, I dunno, I
don’t know if ‘e is a racist ‘is self, even if some of ‘em are.
S: ‘E bleddy is,
Clive, straight up. Knows one when I
sees one. ‘E’s got elected off all the
racism ‘e wuz talkin’, so ‘e’s either racist or stupid or a liar or all of ‘em. Tell you what in all – they ‘ad a black
President, ‘n’ ‘e proved the point, dinn’ ‘e?
If you’re black in America you gotta be et-septional to get anywhere.
You know, like Chris Rock said, if you’re a average black student you
can’t even be manager of a Burger King, meanwhile a white average student is
the President. Well, now it’s like, if
you’re black, to be president, you gotta be highly educated, smoove, a good
speaker, very gentle with white people’s feelin’s, all that. Meanwhile, to be a white President you gotta
be rich. And also bein a total gobshite
racist nause en’t no problem. ‘S’ a
joke, reely.
D: Stupid, I’ll give
you, whatever else ‘e may be.
S: Yeah, we can all
agree on that one.
D: I tells you what, we take the piss out the
Americans, Steve, but if we en’t careful, we’a end ut just like ‘em, mind.
S: Yeah, I reckon you got a point there, Deano.
C: Your round, Deano
– and we’ll all agree on that one in all!
D: Alright then, same
again? Steve, you ‘avin’ one?
S: [Waving his empty glass] Too right.
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