The Narratives – Mohamed Miah

Mohamed Miah | The Narratives

How British media decided whose life is acceptable

If you really want to know a country, don’t start with its parliament.

Start with its football and its media.

Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford play the same sport, in the same league, for the same national team. Yet the stories told about them could not be more different.

Those stories are not random. They reveal the quiet, everyday machinery of racism in Britain – not in slurs and chants, but in tone, framing and who is allowed to be human.

Two Players, Two Parallel Universes

When Jack Grealish stumbles out of a club, half-cut and smiling, the headlines grin with him.

He is “one of the lads”.

He is a “cheeky rogue”.

He is a “character”.

His partying is framed as banter, his drinking as culture, his nights out as part of the myth. If he underperforms, we are told he “needs managing better” or “just needs confidence.” The blame slides off him and lands on his manager, his tactics, his fitness, the weather – anyone but him.

Now take Marcus Rashford.

Let him have a night out.

Let him fly abroad.

Let his form dip.

Suddenly the language hardens.

“Unprofessional.”

“Distracted.”

“Does he deserve his wages?”

The warmth disappears. The benefit of the doubt evaporates. The same lifestyle is read through a different lens because it sits on a Black body.

This is what institutional racism looks like: not one editor screaming abuse, but thousands of tiny decisions that add up to a completely different reality.

“One of the Lads”?

Grealish is allowed to be complicated. He can be messy and adored at the same time.

He can drink, swear, party, underperform and still be framed as loveable and authentic. The public is invited to identify with him. He is permitted layers.

Rashford is not given the same room.

He has to be the model professional, the quiet role model, the polite campaigner. Any human slip – a dip in form, a visible frustration, a loud night out – becomes a moral failing. There is no cheeky headline to cushion the blow.

One is treated as a son of the nation.

The other is treated as someone who must continually prove he deserves to be here.

“Good Enough”?

When Grealish turns up at Everton or on a random away day, the story is always romantic.

Look at him. Still close to the “real fans”. Still working-class. Still grounded.

When Rashford is linked to or seen near one of the greatest clubs in the world, Barcelona, the conversation shifts instantly to doubt.

Is he good enough?

Should he be thinking about this at all?

Why isn’t he focusing on his current form?

The football industry, especially outside England, has no difficulty recognising Rashford’s talent. It is British commentary that constantly questions it.

Again, the pattern repeats: white players are granted endless potential; Black players are asked to justify their existence.

Hungry Children “Politics”

The contrast becomes even sharper when you leave the pitch and walk into politics.

Marcus Rashford used his platform to push the government into extending free school meals for children from low-income families during the holidays. His campaign helped secure millions of meals and forced multiple government U-turns. 

Millions of children in this country were fed because a young Black footballer refused to stay in his lane.

Yet even then, parts of the political and media class responded with irritation.

Some MPs accused him of encouraging “dependency”. Others hinted that he was being manipulated. He was told to stick to football. He was treated as if his compassion was an inconvenience to power, not a contribution to society. 

Ask yourself honestly: if Jack Grealish had led the same campaign, would it have been met with the same suspicion? Or would we be talking about statues and knighthoods?

GB News, TalkTV and White Grievance

These double standards don’t exist in isolation. They sit inside a wider media ecosystem that has learned how to monetise white grievance and racial anxiety.

Channels like GB News are openly described as right-wing outlets, with a roster of politician-presenters and pundits who frame almost every issue through culture war. Polling suggests it is the least trusted of the major TV news brands, yet it has outsized influence among Conservative members and the online right. 

Analysis of its content has shown a skewed obsession with migrants, Muslims and people linked to Pakistan, framing them disproportionately through stories of crime, grooming and threat. 

TalkTV operates in a similar emotional register. Night after night, audiences are fed a diet of fear: of refugees, of “woke” youth, of “out-of-control” London, of “ungrateful” players who dare to speak about race or poverty.

These channels are not anomalies. They are the purest expression of something that has long existed in British tabloids and talk radio. They simply removed the final layer of subtlety.

Racism Is Not a Glitch

When people hear the phrase “institutionally racist”, they imagine something vague and academic.

In reality, it’s quite simple.

If Black people and other minorities consistently end up worse off across multiple systems – policing, pay, wealth, media representation and health – then the system is not neutral.

In England and Wales, recent official data shows Black people are stopped and searched at over four times the rate of white people nationally, and in London the rates have reached nearly 70 stops per 1,000 Black people in some years, far higher than the rate for white people. 

On wealth, the Runnymede Trust found Black African and Bangladeshi households have around one-tenth of the wealth of white British households – a racial wealth gap built from decades of unequal housing access, labour market disadvantage and discrimination. 

Ethnicity pay gap analysis by the ONS and public-sector employers shows that, once you adjust for factors like age, role and region, Black employees are still paid less than comparable white employees, and major institutions like NHS England report persistent ethnicity pay gaps in favour of white staff. 

Minority ethnic households are also more likely to experience persistent low income than white British households, with particularly high rates among some Asian and “Other” ethnic groups. 

These are not isolated anomalies; they are the statistical fingerprints of a system that consistently values some lives less than others.

The Politics of Delay

Over the past four decades, Britain has commissioned report after report on racism – from policing after the murder of Stephen Lawrence to Windrush and beyond.

A recent investigation found that only about one-third of nearly 600 recommendations to tackle systemic racism have been fully implemented. 

The pattern is depressingly familiar.

A racist scandal explodes.

A commission is formed.

A report is written.

The headlines fade.

The recommendations gather dust.

The system survives by promising change and delivering delay.

“All Lives Matter”

When Black Lives Matter protests spread across the world after the murder of George Floyd, the message was painfully straightforward:

Stop killing us.

Stop treating Black lives as disposable.

The movement asked for equality, not supremacy.

Yet the backlash was immediate. “All Lives Matter” and “White Lives Matter” emerged as counter-slogans designed to flatten the specific reality of anti-Black racism.

Even academic and civil rights organisations have been clear: responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter” derails the conversation and denies the disproportionate harm faced by Black communities. 

In Britain, polling showed roughly half of people supported the aims of BLM, but a majority also believed the protests had “increased racial tension.” 

Instead of asking why Black Britons felt compelled to march in the middle of a pandemic, many chose to blame the march itself for exposing the fracture.

“All lives matter” was never about inclusion.

It was about discomfort.

It was about refusing to look in the mirror.

Decency Rebranded as “Woke”

We now live in a time where basic decency is mocked as “virtue signalling.”

Feeding hungry children is “political.”

Talking about racism is “divisive.”

Challenging police powers is “soft on crime.”

Supporting refugees is “naïve.”

A word that once meant “awake to injustice” – woke – has been turned into a lazy insult, deployed against anyone who refuses to accept cruelty as normal. 

This is not an accident.

If you can turn empathy into something embarrassing, you no longer have to feel guilty about being indifferent. If you can paint campaigns like Rashford’s or movements like BLM as extremist, you never have to confront what they are actually saying.

It is easier to laugh at conscience than to be changed by it.

Emotional Economy of Racism

Racism is not just about laws and statistics. It is an emotional economy.

Certain groups are allowed anger. Others are punished for it. Certain groups are allowed fragility. Others are told to toughen up. Certain groups are allowed complexity. Others are flattened into stereotypes.

Grealish is allowed to be flawed and funny.

Rashford is expected to be flawless and grateful.

White fans are allowed to be nostalgic for “the good old days.”

Black and brown communities are told to “move on” from slavery, empire and immigration raids.

When Black creatives say that the boom in “diversity” work after BLM has faded, and that they are now “fighting over scraps,” they are not making a feeling up; they are describing a cycle in which Black trauma becomes temporary content, not a reason for lasting change. 

Justice Making Some People Angry

The most honest question white Britain has to ask itself is this:

Why does it make you angry when Black people and other minorities ask for basic justice?

Why did “Black Lives Matter” feel to some like an attack rather than a plea to be included?

Why did a footballer feeding children provoke resentment?

Why does calling out racism get treated as worse than the racism itself?

If the system truly treated all lives the same, then “Black Lives Matter” would be a statement nobody argued with.

The fury it provoked is proof that equality here is conditional and negotiated – offered in speeches, withheld in practice.

Britain 2025 The Mirror

Grealish vs Rashford is not really about two men. It is about what Britain reflexively forgives and what it instinctively fears.

It is about who is allowed to stumble and still be loved.

Who is allowed to open their mouth without being told to be grateful.

Who is allowed to demand better without being branded a threat.

The statistics tell one story. The media tone tells another. Together, they describe a country still structured by race, even when the language is polite and the institutions insist they are neutral.

Racism in Britain today is not just in slurs; it lives in headlines, booking decisions, editorial choices, pay gaps, police encounters and who is given the benefit of the doubt.

Until we can say that out loud – without deflection, without “what about”, without hiding behind “woke” as a punchline – nothing fundamental will change.

Further Reading

Ethnicity facts and figures: Stop and search – GOV.UK Official data on how often different ethnic groups are stopped and searched in England and Wales, showing persistent racial disproportionality. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-justice-and-the-law/policing/stop-and-search/latest/

ONS – Household wealth by ethnicity, Great Britain Analysis of wealth distribution showing Black African households heavily concentrated in the lowest wealth bands, with very few in the highest. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/articles/householdwealthbyethnicitygreatbritain/april2016tomarch2018

Runnymede Trust – The Colour of Money (2020) Landmark report on the UK’s racial wealth gap, including findings that Black African and Bangladeshi households have around ten times less wealth than white British households. https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/Research/Wealth-Elites-and-Tax-Justice/UK-Racial-Wealth-Gap?utm_source=chatgpt.com

ONS – Ethnicity pay gaps, UK: 2012 to 2022 Detailed breakdown of pay gaps between ethnic groups, after adjusting for factors like age, role and region. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/ethnicitypaygapsingreatbritain/2012to2022

NPCC – Police action plan to address race disparities Police-led acknowledgement that Black people are many times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people, and that trust is lower among Black communities. https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/police-action-plan-launched-aiming-to-address-race-disparities-affecting-black-people-and-change-a-legacy-of-distrust

Good Law Project – “GB News: the skewed language that fuels a propaganda factory” Investigation into GB News output, showing a disproportionate focus on migrants and Muslims, and the channelling of racialised fears. https://goodlawproject.org/gb-news-the-skewed-language-that-fuels-a-propaganda-factory/

Guardian – Analysis of racism recommendations since 1981 Review showing that only around a third of hundreds of official recommendations to tackle systemic racism have been fully implemented. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/25/only-a-third-of-recommendations-to-tackle-endemic-racism-in-uk-implemented

Ipsos / YouGov polling on Black Lives Matter in the UK Surveys on public attitudes towards BLM, including levels of support, perceptions of increased tension and generational divides. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/half-britons-support-aims-black-lives-matter-movement

UNH Scotland & other explainers – Why “All Lives Matter” is harmful Resources on how “All Lives Matter” functions as a dismissive response that shuts down discussion of anti-Black racism. https://www.unhscotland.org.uk/post/why-is-it-so-offensive-to-say-all-lives-matter

Coverage of Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign Reporting on how a footballer forced multiple government U-turns on child food poverty, and the political backlash he faced. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/08/marcus-rashford-forces-boris-johnson-into-second-u-turn-on-child-food-poverty