Sterling & Alves: Differing Reactions to Racism in Sport

On one side of the Atlantic, owner of NBA Clippers Donald Sterling is being fined $2.5m for racist comments. On the other, Barcelona player Dani Alves gets a banana thrown at him by a Villarreal fan whilst taking a corner.

Both Sterling and the presumably marginally less solvent Villarreal fan have been banned from the respective stadiums for life and Social Media is alight with responses to both expressions of racism in sport. Everyone from Snoop Dogg to Barack Obama has voiced their disapproval for Sterling's comments.

Indignant outrage is spewing forth from Twitter accounts and vlogs, it probably makes everyone feel pretty good to jump up and start jabbing fingers at the man who did the really bad thing but does it really stop racism?

Over the water Alves takes a couple of steps back in preparation for his set piece, sees the banana thrown at him and casually peels it and takes a bite before continuing to play. A Twitter movement has picked up momentum with footballers, politicians and everyday plebs like you and I posting pics of themselves on Twitter eating bananas with the hashtag #weareallmonkeys.

The humour and calmness with which Alves reacted to racism has certainly informed the tone of the Twitter movement. Eradicating racism may never happen. Us humans are contrary beasts; whilst we like to belong and include everyone, we also want to feel like we are the best.

In order to feel the best, someone else has to be worse in some way. One arbitrary marker is the colour of someone's skin.

Unlike the #nomakeupselfie campaign where those who didn't post were potentially labelled as mean old Cancer lovers, this campaign will incite debate and discussion among those who see the pictures.

Awareness of racism and discussion as to what constitutes being racist, how those who encounter it may feel and the effect it has had on their personal and professional lives is extremely important

In understanding how damaging that behaviour and how insidious and ingrained it is in so many societies.Seeing Alves behave in such a dignified manner is key in leading by example and laughing at the idiocy and nonsensical ethics of racism because he is right, after all, we are all monkeys.

Bio: Jenny Rudd returned to New Zealand in 2007 after spending 6 years as a trader in London making the transition from numbers to letters by heading up the content team at MOSH, New Zealand's leading copywriting agency.

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