I suppose like most people who followed the story throughout Friday and Saturday, I was appalled by the content of the piece particularly the unwarranted personal attack on Barkley, likening him to a gorilla in a zoo.
The article also went on to make disparaging remarks about the citizens of Liverpool, suggesting that the only people capable of earning a a comparable wage to Barkley were drug dealers.
There was an obvious reaction; some believed that because of Barkley's heritage (his Grandfather was Nigerian) there were racist undertones, whilst others believed that MacKenzie's motivation to write the story in the manner that he did was linked to his role in the infamous coverage of the Hillsborough by the Sun. I've no doubt that both those issues contributed to the content, but a broader issue has been troubling me throughout the day which I felt compelled to voice in this blog. I'm sure many of you may feel the same as I do and clearly it's something that needs to be addressed and publicised widely so that the ordinary people of this country can understand how they are being manipulated by the media in general.
My belief is this. We, the working classes of this country and beyond, who make up the vast majority of the population, are constantly sucked into a massive propaganda programme orchestrated by the ruling establishment, who are able to persuade us to believe that we are our worst enemies.
Fuckin' hell where did that come from, I hear you saying, and what's that got to do with Ross Barkley, Everton Football Club or the people of Liverpool? Are you the new Owen Jones?
Well let me ask you to look at the article (or what has been reported about it, now that it has been removed from The Sun's website) and compare it to the way the media deals with the working class in general terms when it wants to demonise them.
Barkley's an ordinary kid from Liverpool with an extraordinary talent for sport, most notably football. He attended Broadgreen International School, which as far as I can remember (it used to be called Highfield Comp when I was a kid) is just a bog standard State school with a catchment area around Wavertree and Old Swan. This is a fairly average area of Liverpool; not overly deprived but a far cry from being privileged. He was snapped up by Everton at the age of 11 and has represented England since the age of 15. He is idolised and admired by fans of football and the public in general, not for his academic achievements -I don't think I've ever heard him discussing Einsteins Theory of Relativity or read a treatise by him on the fall of the Roman Empire- but for his skills on the field.
MacKenzie on the other hand comes from far more privileged stock. His parents were both journalists and he attended Alleyn's Public School in Dulwich, London. Notwithstanding that, and despite calling Barkley "thick", he left school with one O level. It beggars the question therefore as to how Kelvin was able to advance his journalistic career early on with such limited academic qualifications and one might assume that maybe his parents were able to give him a leg up.
But Kelvin has learned the game well; if you want to demonise someone without any real evidence then question their intelligence, especially if they are working class, because it follows that we will all accept stereotypes. "The thick inarticulate footballer". Barkley's not the only one who has had this treatment. It wasn't too long ago that David Beckham got the same press. He was a young working class lad with a cockney accent, prime material for the "thick" label and the media made the most of it. Not now though because he's worth £60 million and is best mates with Prince William and a host of Hollywood A listers.
Which brings me on to the comparison I'd like to make. Has anyone ever watched Zara Phillips' acceptance speech at the 2006 BBC Sports Personality awards? No...well here's the link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/sports-personality/24742872
Now imagine if that speech had been given by Wayne Rooney in a broad Liverpool accent or by any other working class kid who has made his or her name in sport. There would have been one of two reactions; "thick bastard" or "bless him at least he tried". But nobody says anything about the Queen's grand daughter except she was so elegant and beautiful...and she beat Joe Calzaghe, the most successful British boxer in the history of the sport. The fall out of that occasion focused more on Joe's sour grapes than it did on the lunacy of the result. After all is it much of a sporting achievement to win a world title in a sport that the majority of ordinary people could only dream of competing?
My point is that when a thick aristocrat achieves something nobody likens him or her to a gorilla. Mercy no! Why risk the wrath of the working classes who love their royals.
MacKenzie's portrait of Barkley as a working class hero is probably typical as to how the establishment views all our heroes; vulgar, uncouth and common. They think it and the press sells it to us. And we buy it, over and over again. Daley Thompson whistled through the National Anthem after winning his second Olympic gold in 1984. Then in a press conference afterwards implied that he might have children with Princess Anne in the hope that they would be white. The headlines the next day didn't refer to the fact that Britain's greatest athlete had achieved the impossible -unbeaten in a competeitive event for 8 years, including 2 World Championships and 2 Olympics- no, Daley was pilloried for showing disrespect to the National Anthem and Royal Family. I remember pissing myself laughing...but Daley had committed career suicide. The Press destroyed him and he was ostracised by the Sporting Establishment. That's what you get for having a working class sense of humour. You're not quite a "gorilla", but certainly an unpatriotic oik. Oh and don't forget who was the editor of The Sun throughout this era.
What you have to realise, and the reason this why this blog piece was written, is not because The Sun is some elitist pamphlet read by kindred spirits, but because it is a "newspaper" purchased and read in the main by working class people. Why do we tolerate it? It can't be that it keeps us all properly informed on current affairs and politically savvie. Far from it. It's the sleaze and fantasy that it spews out on a daily basis mixed with a recipe of pretty faces and celebrity gossip. It is Aldous Huxley's "soma" for the Gamma classes of our Brave New World. We are hooked on it.
We've got to do something about it.
Whether you are from Liverpool, London or Leeds (a bit of middle class alliteration there), whether you support Everton, Liverpool, Crawley or Bognor Regis, if you're working class starve the establishment of their propaganda tools. Stop buying their shit. There are enough sites on the internet for you to get a fair balanced view of what is going on in the world. And empathise with your own...imagine Ross Barkley was your son, or Daley Thompson was your brother or you had to choose a dress for a national TV event like Kelly Holmes. Don't let the chattering classes put us down. Look at them in their middle class nepotistic professions. Drug dealers may bring misery to our communities, but no more than economic deprivation. And no matter what The Sun and MacKenzie may imply about drug dealing in Liverpool, at least we know that a lot of their profits go into the infrastructure of our community: bars, clubs, hotels, restaurants, property development, gyms, sun bed shops etc...all of which create jobs. They don't filter their ill-gotten gains into overseas trusts or syphon off billions of pounds of working class pension funds. Nor did they ever bring the country closer than ever to economic ruin. Double standards Kelvin...what do you call bankers and financiers who work in the City? Leeches, parasites, blood sucking shits? No, I bet you call them friends.
Remember they are no friend of the man in the street, but Ross Barkley is. I've seen him down in Alder Hey Hospital at Christmas, I've seen him socialising with school friends from Broadgreen International and paying tax. He's one of us, Kelvin and if he's a gorilla in the zoo then I'm with the primates.
In ending I ask you to consider the words of another working class hero
Bob Marley said it in Redemption Song so aptly:-
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds...
...How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Don't let them kill our prophets.
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