Tyson Fury should not have to put up with racism

I had heard of his prolific tweeting before and some of the more unsavoury things he has said about his likely future opponent David Price.

I spent just half an hour taking a cursory glance at Fury’s own tweets and, depending on your taste and point of view, they ranged from funny to offensive.

But what struck me more than his swipes at boxing promoter Frank Maloney was the amount of anti–traveller abuse Fury received.

Fury has made no secret of the fact he is from a travelling family and has every right to express how proud he is of where he comes from.

But tweet after tweet directed at him ranged from overt racism to references about potatoes and who was going to drive his caravan while he was in the ring.

One tweet was in response to Fury asking for topless pics as it was Christmas. Tasteless maybe, but it hardly justifies somebody posting themselves with their top off holding a sign saying “Pikey C**t” and tweeting that back at Fury.

Now you might say, Fury is a big guy and he can handle it. He seems to give as good as he gets on the Twittersphere anyhow.

But is that really the point?

The exchanges show that anti-traveller rhetoric is still seen as acceptable in Britain.

Media reporting of the mass eviction of the Dale Farm site in Essex last year showed the prejudice that still exists not just among sections of the press but among the public at large.

And programmes like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, with its offensive posters that were criticised by regulators, help to make this kind of racism acceptable.

Words like “Gyppo” and “Pikey” have been in common usage since I was at school in the mid ’90s and remain standard terms of abuse today.

Statistics for Irish travellers in Britain do not exist, although in 2011 for the first time, the census categorised Romanies (including Roma) and Irish travellers as distinct ethnic groups.

Recent estimates of travellers living in Britain range between 15,000 and 300,000.

And according to the Gypsy Roma Traveller Achievement Service: “Sadly, racism and discrimination have gone hand in hand with Gypsies and travellers.

“Many Gypsy, Roma and travellers are subject to racist attacks and name-calling, the withdrawal of services and refusal of admission to shops and pubs and so on. This is despite the Race Relations
Amendment Act 2000, which has made all these things illegal.”

It adds: “Roma, Romany Gypsies and Irish travellers are now all recognised to have protection under the Race Relations Act as they have been finally recognised as minority ethnic communities in law.”

So if travellers are a race, why have the Tyson tweeters not been arrested for these racist tweets?

If Fury was a black boxer and equivalent offensive language was being dished out to him in a public forum, there would rightly be an outcry and the perpetrators arrested. But that is only down to the fact of
massive anti-racism campaigns run over many decades.

Arrests have been made this week regarding racist tweets towards professional footballers and the Luis Suarez—Patrice Evra racism saga has put racial and cultural prejudice into the sporting spotlight.

But at the moment I don’t see any police cars on the horizon coming to take the anti-Gypsy brigade away just yet.