Players Views

Jermaine Jenas

England

Did you experience racism when you were growing up?
I was brought up in a primarily white area of Nottingham and got a lot of the racism with me being of mixed race and my dad being black. But I don’t really let it affect me that much now, but I’ve seen other people who were in the area that it did affect, you know, who got bullied and stuff like that. It affects them mentally and physically and it’s not a nice thing. I was lucky enough to have good strong people behind me, my family and my friends you know and we managed to just get through it.

School was different, because at school sometimes it was hard not to retaliate, you know, it was constant and you were seeing these people day in and day out. I think you’ve got to stand up for yourself at some stage to show them that they can’t get away with it, at least that’s what I found at the time. I’m not saying that you should go out and fight people, but I just think I understand why people get to that stage sometimes. It’s a touchy subject, you know, racism, and my mum’s given me a lot of guidance in that area saying that people are just not well educated. In those days people weren’t well educated in the area and to them they didn’t really honestly think they were doing anything wrong and I’m sure if those people look back on those times now I’m sure they would probably be saying 'sorry'.

Where do you think people get racism from?
They get it from their parents and the other people around them who were really giving them that kind of racism against blacks, Chinese, asian, any other kind of people.

Why do you think that’s racism has reduced in recent times in football?
I just think a lot of people are more educated in the area, I think there’s a lot more inter-racial relationships also. I think there’s a lot of reasons why it’s reduced and obviously the campaigning of people like ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ and getting people aware of it, you know.

One of the features of the new video is the benefits of multi-cultural society. Is that something that you have experienced during your time at Newcastle with all the different nationalities and cultures of the players?
There’s a lot of different religions and lifestyles and things like that. Here you’ve got French, Peruvians, you’ve got all kinds of different races and religions in the camp but I think there’s a good mix, you know there’s a good relationship between all the lads.

Are there any particular role models you would look to historically either in football or cultural figures?
In football John Barnes was a big role for me and I’ve seen a lot of things he went through and how he rose above it and became such a world class player. Obviously in other areas I recently got to meet Nelson Mandela in South Africa and that was amazing for me and obviously it speaks for itself what he did for black people and I think for the world as a whole.