UNLOCKING THE LOCKER ROOM
COCONUT — CHAPTER FOUR
Admit it, locker room talk, between sports stars, work colleagues and friends is rife in today’s society.
The term has been popularised in the papers and media by Trump’s “grab her by the pussy” scandal, but ‘lad banter’ has been around since the dawn of time. Or, thinking about it — when the first public house was built.
No, it must have been whenever the first sports ball was sown, then kicked or thrown; actually it has got to be the first time cave men got together after a good day of hunting and gathering, had a celebratory night out, only to burst into the largest cave owned by the strongest alpha male to show off his titillating wall drawings of ladies on the prairie.
There is no man on this planet, or girl for that matter, who has not felt the gawping, heavy, dull slap on the back of peer pressure. Been at the cross roads of temptation, the choice between right or wrong. To join in on the joke, or to step away slowly.
You would hope that an individual’s strength in character, the eventuality of experience or the broad stroke of getting older and wiser, would be enough for someone to turn off that tap. To strop gulping the peer pressure Perrier water, and to just say no. I have suffered at the hands of the pressure many a time, especially in my early twenties. Blissfully thinking that being crass and ballsy over my weekly sexual conquests made me more of a man.
It didn’t, it doesn’t, it just makes you look like a prick. A little prick at that.
So Trump’s 1990s faux pas, okay, lets get it right — fuck up, went viral in early 2018 and brought Women’s Rights back onto the front pages of news outlets; along with a bucket loads of memes, tweets and imagery both for and against his actions. We questioned how we as a nation, or human race talk about women in general. For all the right reasons Trumps carelessness got us talking, across the dinner table and beyond, worldwide.
The #MeToo campaign, a rose grown from the concrete of the latest Trump leak, thornily dug deeper into the actions of those in power.
A fearful cord strung for all men, or man-child, who had ever put themselves stupidly into a sticky situation — sent a text a little too long to a girl they liked, a little too late at night. That caught themselves leering at the new girl in the office, accidentally catching their eye and then whipping back to work as if nothing had happened. Or had become the man that said just a little too much to Sandra in Accounts at last years Christmas party, holding her fixed and frozen in the corner of the copy room. And rightly so. All this behavior is whole heartedly wrong.
After the public outcry, life was never the same again, the world was changed for the better.
‘Locker Room Talk’ is not just reserved for Women though. We somehow have breezed over the facts, that in these situations, these public but secret meetings of male minds, drowning at the watering hole of contentment are more than happy to talk, gossip and belittle anyone who simply, isn’t them.
No one is safe from the share button; the disabled, the old, the young, the needy and especially anyone that isn’t white and British. Going deeper, Arabic people, Muslims from anywhere in the world, the French get a kick in, the Polish get mocked and anyone who is black or mixed race gets the biggest booting of them all.
In their heads if it’s funny, it’s funny — so why wouldn’t they share something that has amused them. After all, “it’s only a joke!”
But is it?
‘WhatsApp’ has a lot of answer for. When you download the mobile messaging app you are promoted with a privacy notice informing you that these messages are encrypted, end to end. Giving you a sense of anomality to outsiders looking in, you are safe in your circle. You are free to share what you like, to whomever you like without consequence.
Private Groups or ‘Group Chat’ have been created purely to share filth. Mostly pornographic, tits and bits, some poor, bullied polish girl gyrating for the pleasure of the viewer. But the racist ones creep through, slipping through the digital net. Just one more dripping joke in a pool of impurity. There are no visible repercussions, can you get in trouble for sharing something that was shared to you?
Danny Baker certainly is an exception to the rule, although he publicly shared the needless and dark image over his social channels. But where did he get the image from originally? I’d put a £10’er on it being from WhatsApp. With all his bleating and excuses, would he be able to reveal the true source of this ridiculousness? I bet with a quick inspection we would reveal a far harsher truth. The image he shared would be just the tip of the iceberg.
The arrival of dear Archie has sent the sharing within WhatsApp Groups into over-drive. Re-igniting the imagination of the careless sharer, the Nigel Farage’s of the world could rub their knees in excitement, slapping their lips like a hungry dog waiting for his next treat. The ‘harmless joke’ is a light bite way of saying, we are different, we are better than you.
One of my close friends is a member of one of these (WhatsApp) groups. Most likely reveling in a few of them if I am completely honest. He is obsessed with sending me the rude and disgusting imagery he receives on the daily. Mostly, I am sure, because my reaction is mostly a form of spikey revolt, or I will find myself screaming to him in a relay of return messages that ‘I will never be able to eat again.’ Not just because of the content can sometimes make your stomach twirl, but because these images land in my inbox bang on lunchtime. Yum.
Until recently, these images have been mostly boob-based. Nothing too serious, nothing that would get you on any list or knocking on your neighbors door — just grotesque images that you’d never ever want your Mother to see you receive. Ever, ever, ever.
So this next wave cannot be a coincidence, since Harry and Megan hooked up, and almost certainly since their newborns birth a different tone of imagery has seeped into my inbox.
It all started when I received an image of a black ball of fluff, no bigger that the palm of my hand. The ball had two big goggling eyes and large parted red lips. It was a gollywog keyring. My wrist went limp holding the phone, I unlocked the phone looked again, it was a white hand, holding the black, balled keyring. The hand was my friends. One of my closest friends.
I close my phone immediately, taking myself offline. I don’t want my friend to know I’ve seen it; I don’t quite know how to swallow this pill. But the double blue ticks give away my need for a quick hiding place — he knows I’ve seen the image.
A few minutes roll by, I serve him no response. Something has changed in me — this feels like it has gone too far. II receive a follow up message;
“It’s you!” the message reads.
Wow. I think. Talk about turning the key. What does he want me to do, laugh and join in?
“I got that..“ my retort was. I wasn’t feeding his insecurities with this time round with this type of content. Silence from my friend. Had I made the point, I wasn’t to know as there was no follow up reply. I assume the pure enjoyment of sending the image gave him the satisfaction he was after.
A few days roll by and I receive another image from him. It is of the Queen. She is visibly horrified, with big eyes and mouth wide open, aghast. She is holding a baby, a black baby with ginger hair.
Immediately I delete the image. I am not playing this game. I resort to silence as I don’t want to cut him down over text, it doesn’t feel right.
I need to educate, not humiliate.
Another day rolls by, I am sitting at my parent’s home, warm and fat from the lunch I had just swallowed whole like a rampant goose in the wild. My phone whirs on the table top; it is yet another image from my friend.
This image is of an Arabic sheep farmer. Tall, with large, long curly hair. The sheep push and shove him until he falls over in pain, just to have a second and third sheep pile into him.
“OUCH!” I reply. Forgetting that my friend has been taking racist pot shots at me for the past week.
His quick reply is; “It that you?”
Shocked I put my phone away. What is my “friend” trying to achieve here. Is this him trying to be funny? All it’s doing is coming across as racist digs.
All I can bring myself to say is “WOW”. My heart is deflated, have a lost a friend, I question myself, has he always been like this.?
It brings me right back down to earth. I have never encouraged this behavior, but I have never discouraged or berated it either. I’ve stood silently, let friends throw around the N-word behind closed doors, me brushing it off because I knew they were inebriated by the green or just loved Snoop Dogg so much they didn’t see colour, or have learnt enough about what my great-grandfathers went through to have been standing here today.
I am ashamed of myself.
They know its wrong, I know its wrong. It has gone way too far. I am too old to take this anymore. I realize on a deep level that I have been swallowing this bitter pill my whole life, ignoring my own truth for years. Since birth. I have ignored my shared heritage; I have not defended my brothers and sisters in situations like this.
It must start with me, today. Not tomorrow, now.
Honesty can be your cruelest weapon. Used effectively you can bring down the tallest of walls with your words. I take a moment and reply with;
“Racist jokes aren’t landing well, doesn’t make you look good tbh!”
Short, sweet and to the point. With a quick quip I make the boy look at himself. He immediately reply’s trying to brush it off as a mild-joke, “it was just a big guy with big hair, it was meant like that!”
Then how was it meant? To pick out qualities in a person, and laugh at them, what do we call that, bullying? Racism? Either one still doesn’t exactly feel good. Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean its okay. Ever.
We speak a few days later, he is shuffling and awkward on the phone. I let him over speak and talk himself into silence, emulating my disinterest in what he’s saying.
He breaks the ice, claiming that he would never mean to be racist, he’s known me for years, clutching at straws, looking for any excuse he continues to say that he is on this group and “been sent loads of this stuff recently, and just thought I’d share it with my mates”
‘Educate, not humiliate’ I repeat to myself like a mantra Id learnt off the back of a cereal packet. I explain to him my concerns over the life of the new born prince, how the skepticism has entered his life and debates will arise soon on how ‘black the boy is.’ I remind him that I had told him just weeks before of my racial abuse on the bus as a child, yet he still thought it funny to share these images. Our friendship will never be the same again.
I tried my best to be a teacher, to show him my side of the story without being aggressive, belittling or self-righteous. There was no soap-box, I realize my place to re-educate when I encounter these bursts of brutality. To remind us all, one callous, cowardly racist friend at a time, that these jokes are not funny, and should not be shared. That the source of these creations should be stopped, or failing that, the content stops and is deleted as soon as it is received.
We need to change, within ourselves, it has to start with us as individuals. Call them out. Do not fear the results. These people need to be taught, otherwise this behaviour will continue forever. If I could start a hashtag that would hopefully create a similar wave to the #MeToo campaign it would be as simple as #StopSharingShit — from the pain of these brave womens stories came light, and new found hope. I am hopeful that these words will be the beginning of a new chapter for us all.
