No it's not. The vast majority of pundits and journalists criticise black players in the same way that they would non-black players. Race is almost never brought up as an explanation for their criticism because it almost never is. There's a reason that Souness is attracting this attention about his comments and no other pundit or journalist is. I've took issue in the past with Yaya Toure being criticised for an apparent laziness (including by Souness), but I've never once accused people making those comments of falling back on racial stereotypes. It's simply because I've disagreed with that view and attributed their perception to other factors.
Gary Neville is also being accused of racism due to his hard on for Pogba. Scholes will be next. I never noticed Souness was thought of as racist until he kept on about Pogba and people made memes on Twitter. So the issue is that Souness compared a black striker (Kean) who was sold by a big club whilst still in the 1st team scoring goals with loads of promise, with another young black striker, who was also a 1st teamer with promise but was possibly problematic and sold by Arsenal? Had he used another player, then this would of just passed? It seems he is posing the question why they were both sold at this stage of their careers and he gave valid reasons for his surprise. We were all surprised when Everton snapped Kean up. I guess Souness should of been more woke and used Bellamy as an example of a striker sold at a surprising stage of his career (actually he had off the field issues too) or maybe he could of cited Ronaldo going to Inter (but he black too), Anelka (except he also black), possibly Tevez getting let go by United (except he turned out a cnut), maybe if there were lots of similar examples of strikers sold like this, then he wouldn't of stumbled on the racism of using Adebayor as the basis but truth is there are few examples of this except maybe Balotelli (unfortunately also black). I guess if he compared Kean to Balotelli this would of been even worse. Truth is it is rare for a big side to sell one of their promising and most talented strikers on the cheap, especially when they have just broken through or are doing ok. I say it's more ignorance on the part of Souness but it's still causing more fuss than is necessary.
Supplanting the 'I'm not racist, I have black friends' is the more catchy 'I'm not racist, I praised Lacazette and Aubameyang at the weekend'
Supplanting the 'I'm not racist, I have black friends' is the more catchy 'I'm not racist, I praised Lacazette and Aubameyang at the weekend'
You know what, I believe he has. That must mean he is immune to any and all charges of racial bias. You're a genius. Well done.
Ah, the classic snowflake epithet. Funnily enough, the only thing I'm offended by currently is your intellect.
No answer or response to any question on Souness’s views but just a derisory remark.
I'd respond if you said anything worth responding to. Your chosen line of defence for Souness was that he has praised Arsenal's front three and he has criticised white players before
deary me. Have a word with yourself.I mean, it says he was left out for being late.
Pathetic souness labelling Kean as trouble. Damaging a guys reputation for no reason. The reasons people call him troublesome with off field activities means we are all troublesome with off field actitivies. Unconcious bias. Were all troublesome lads.
I'd respond if you said anything worth responding to. Your chosen line of defence for Souness was that he has praised Arsenal's front three and he has criticised white players before
.Mancini actually said himself that it was punishment and they need to be better (the two dropped) so yeah it came from their own manager. Also he has Raiola as an agent. A known toe rag and difficult character to deal with. You made a false equivalence there. Criticising a black player is never deemed racist but turning up late for team meetings is a punishable offence in the football realm. Unless he was punished for being black? Anyway I am sure Moise is a nice boy and Souness isn't as evil as being made out and there are plenty reason why Souness would be suspicious over Everton and United players outside of their skin colour
To be honest. I was a bit suspicious of his attirude as well. I know souness dont like pogba and wasnt fan of adebayor. But I have seen nothing indicating its because of their skin color.
But they are black and one must look at everything intersectional when dealing with a person from a minority of marginised group! Also you realise that you are a racist now right?
I think this is too simplistic a way to look at it, as @BobbyManc said, he’s not being accused of hating blacks, he’s being accused of having racial prejudices based off negative stereotypes. There’s a huge difference and some, me included believe it cloud’s his analysis. No one’s calling him the leader of the KKK.
The funny thing is if souness posted here and wrote the things he says on tv. Most would agree when it comes to pogba.
Yeah but the accusations of racial prejudice stem from him not liking Pogba and comparing 2 transfers and making a link as to why they were sold. You can call my point of view simplistic and that's fine but your sugarcoating it yourself as you are still calling him a racist.
Selling Kean for less than 30mil (to a PL club!) does not make financial sense. He's mentioning Adebayor because he's at the Emirates. Adebayor got sold early for not a lot of cash because he lacked professionalism. Souness suggests the same might be true of Kean and is pretty much proven right within hours.Sourness said:
I don't think he's overtly or intentionally racist.
I can kind of get down with this viewpoint
From what I can tell, souness is overtly non racist. When he signed Mark Walters for rangers, he warned him it might be difficult for him because of the racist crowd. Or this story from Howard Gayle on Tommy Smith being a racist cnut in the 70s:
No, I wasnt trying to make an equivalence. I was trying to show how silly this thread has been. As ive said previously in this thread, I dont think Souness is racist. I just think hes ignorant without realising it and to top it off, a really poor pundit who is making negative assumptions with nothing to back it up.
Snowflakes! A desperately outdated term only used for weak arguments in my experience.
I thought the same.
This sort of makes a lot of sense however the problem or indeed why i made that initial post is, the majority of people will label souness as a racist and put him in the same bracket as overt racists and it will spread like wildfire on social media when he is clearly not a racist.
You must have missed all those runs Yaya did coast-to-coast NBA style when attacking. He was lazy when defending thoughHe's a sour b*stard yeah but when people like @BobbyManc start calling him racist because he says a black player is lazy (shock horror, some are) or he says another one is being unprofessional (shock horror, they can be) is just agenda-driven short-sightedness.
Pretty obvious what your agenda is when you take issue with comments about Yaya Toure getting lazy in his older years, not sure the guy ever sprinted once during his time in England 
Putting it simply there's 2 ways to take Sourness's criticism. You can look at his experience, see the parallels (Juve selling a bright young forward with his best years ahead of him for under £30million? You have to agree that in the current climate that's odd) and the fact Kean got dropped from the Italy squad hours after what he said
or...
You can just say that he's a racist old white man who doesn't like Africans, which is a much simpler pill to swallow.
Cos he's so young, only time will tell which option is the truth, hell it could even be both, but until Sourness starts dropping n-bombs and displaying other definite indicators of having a racial bias then calling him a racist is just plain wrong. Don't care what memes you've seen on Twitter.
I agree with all of this
Nuanced is definitely a word I'd use to describe it. It's essentially a level of insidious racial generalising, and for that reason I think it seems difficult for some to understand it.
Personally, although I agree that they are two different entities, I believe that lazy stereotyping is a form of racism in itself. Now, I've always been of the belief that Graham Souness is an old bigot whose comments are laced with racist undertones, so maybe I'm quite biased when it comes to this discussion.
Lazy stereotyping is both a form of racism and a tool for racism. The more conscious the stereotyping is, the more it can be considered a tool. The less conscious the stereotyping is, the more deeply inherent the racism is.
