Big Interview: John Barnes on whether racism is back? Or did it ever really go away?

“Tell me, do you find this offensive?” he says. We are looking at the logo of the Spanish confectionary company Conguitos which, last month, Bernardo Silva tweeted alongside a photograph of Manchester City team-mate Benjamin Mendy as a child.

Silva was accused of racial stereotyping by anti-racist group Kick it Out and has since been charged by the FA with misconduct. Barnes thinks that was wrong.

“You shouldn’t find it offensive, because you are not black,” he continues. “Is it an offensive image – a black man with big lips?

“Historically, that was an image of an inferior man. So are we still supposed to believe a black man with big lips is inferior because historically people believed that?

“Or am I supposed to think: ‘That looks like me and why are people telling me that’s inferior?’

“In this particular instance, this example, it doesn’t have to be offensive. We have to change the narrative around black men.”

This is not the first time Barnes has made the argument in defence of Silva and it is unlikely to be the last.

Only a short time earlier he has included it in a larger talk to a group mostly made up of youngsters from the Cyrille Regis Legacy Trust’s mentoring scheme Strike A Change.

For 45 minutes in a quiet corner of Villa Park, Barnes speaks with passion about his views on race and racism.

The starting point of his argument is that we are all guilty of unconscious bias and that scapegoating destroys the chance for a proper debate on how we really feel about other races.

Throwing too sharp a spotlight on racism in football, Barnes believes, distracts from the far more widespread discrimination which limits opportunities for black people growing up in the inner cities.

Football, according to Barnes, is the least racist industry in the country.

“Where else is a young black boy afforded the same opportunities as a young white boy?” he asks his audience at one point.

It is a powerful, thought-provoking monologue and for the majority of those gathered, Barnes’s core message appears to hit the target.

“That was inspiring,” remarks one afterwards. “He’s flipped the narrative.”

Yet not everyone is quite so enthusiastic about what Barnes has to say.

Many see danger in his willingness to dismiss or play down cases of racism, his defence of the actor Liam Neeson and his former team-mate Peter Beardsley, the latter of whom was found guilty by an independent FA commission on three counts of racially abusing Newcastle’s young black players and was banned from football for seven months.

Kick it Out branded Beardsley’s language as “appalling” and “horrific”. Barnes, while acknowledging the language was unacceptable, described it as “banter” gone wrong.

“John Barnes makes it harder for me to live my life as a black man — both in the professional sense trying to work in football, and in the personal one, trying to exist in the United Kingdom,” wrote the journalist Carl Anka in a recent article for The Athletic. “His default position of ‘it is society’s problem’ makes him an easy rent-a-quote for people looking to silence others. Others like me.”

Anger is exacerbated by Barnes’s own history. As a player, he suffered abuse and the image of him back-heeling a banana off the pitch at Anfield, during a game against Everton, remain iconic. For many, he remains an inspiration.

Sitting down shortly after his talk, the accusation he has now become an apologist for racists and racism is one he emphatically rejects.

“I get told I am letting people off the hook. No, I am putting everyone on the hook,” says Barnes.

“The problem is people won’t admit how they really feel because they are afraid of being accused of being a racist if they said what they really thought.

“I would not blame people because of what society has told us, wrongly, about some races being superior to others.

“This is the way we have been conditioned to think and until we are prepared to own it and admit it, rather than pointing the finger at Peter Beardsley, nothing will change.

“I will enable Bernardo Silva and people like Bernardo Silva every day if they see a black man and see something that looks in particular like that person and they show that, then there’s nothing wrong with that at all.”

He adds: “I long for the good old days when a black man and a white man could have a fight without it being a racist incident because they’re two a*******s.”

Far from shutting down discussion, Barnes insists he wants to kick-start it.

“Opportunities for the debate happen all the time and then they are lost,” he says. “I will give you an example. When the politician Amber Rudd spoke about how hard it is for black women but she used the word ‘coloured’.

“Instead of Diane Abbott saying thank you for bringing that to people’s attention, she said: ‘You called me coloured now sack her’. The debate was gone.

“People using something to get one-up on someone else because they used the wrong word means the opportunity to discuss real issues is gone.

“We have to have this dialogue as to how we really feel about different people. It is not just the people who get caught, like Peter Beardsley, who feel that way.”

Few would dispute the need for greater discussion and for more education on the topic. Yet surely, it is put to Barnes, incidents of overt racism – like those seen in Bulgaria on Monday or in Montenegro earlier this year – must still be called out and punished?

“Of course they should,” he replies. “But what is more impactful? Two racist fans in Montenegro or what goes on in the inner cities in Birmingham?

“What is one the front pages? Montenegro. Who are we highlighting? Montenegro. Now, what should we be doing? Let us talk about what is going on here.

“I am not saying what happened in Montenegro is not important. But what is infinitely more important is what affects the black community.

“What happens in Montenegro does not affect the black community here one iota. It might affect a black footballer over there and he may feel hard done by.

“But what affects the black community here is what is going on here. The more we highlight what is going on in Montenegro and Bulgaria, it absolves us of responsibility because we are convincing people we are fighting against racism.”

He continues: “All of a sudden people think racism has come back. But it was always there.

“The fact people feel more emboldened, or legitimised to come out and hate foreigners, maybe now they feel comfortable to come out and racism and hate crimes have increased.

“Does that mean these people didn’t have these views in the last 20 years? No, they just kept their mouth shut.

“Lawmakers can pass laws but it is not going to change until you come up with a solution from an education point of view.”

and a humanity point of view, making people know why it is wrong to discriminate.

“People will always come up with a way, a legal way, to let you know they are discriminating against you.”

Listening to Barnes, the charge of him being a rent a quote feels wide of the mark. Whatever you think about his views, he is not saying them for headlines. He truly believes in his words.

Not afraid of being outspoken, he reiterates his criticism of Raheem Sterling, who bought 550 tickets for children from his former school in London.

“I say to Raheem, instead of giving cup final tickets to kids, take them into a press conference and help them get an education,” he says.

“They have no social opportunities, no housing. Cup final tickets aren’t going to help them.

“It will do for one day but what is really going to help? As an elite group, this is what we should be doing.”

Barnes is not worried if his words make people feel uncomfortable. That is rather his intention.

As the interview winds down, there is just time for one more question. What, if anything, gives him hope?

“What gives me hope is my kids, when say to my daughter about a Chinese girl in her class. She said she didn’t have a Chinese girl in her class,” he explains

“I asked her for weeks until eventually I went in and said ‘that Chinese girl’ and she said, ‘no dad, she’s American’.

“Obviously she’s Chinese as far as I’m concerned but American for kids growing up together who now have a new identity. Be it Muslims, blacks or whites.

“This new generation have an identity. That’s not helping us now, maybe in ten or 20 years it will be that way. So it does give me hope.”