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Someone pointed out to me yesterday that I've been very open to 'forgiving' Matt Doherty for essentially not playing in his favoured role, when I didn't necessarily offer Serge Aurier the same charity. People of colour typically have to do more to achieve a level playing field.
I need to be more aware of the way I analyse and discuss these two players but also any black player in relation to attributes or skills or weaknesses that I might forgive/allow in another player's game.
If I'm really honest with myself, Aurier *has* probably always had to do more to impress me because of the homophobia baggage that he arrived with, but I need to be open to the fact that my own unconscious biases maybe impacting this still further.
Taking this a step further, what happened at HT vs Liverpool is interesting. If Aurier was being blamed (& this is speculative), why was he being blamed more than Dier/Lloris? This all feeds neatly into the 'angry black man' trope & I/we need to be careful of making assumptions.
